France launches high-speed train

The new Paris-Marseille link cost $3.25 billion and took 12 years to complete

PARIS, France -- A new high-speed train service that connects Paris to Marseille in just over three hours has been launched.

The first paying passengers boarded the train early on Sunday for the 770-kilometre (480-mile) run just three days after French President Jacques Chirac inaugurated the $3.5 billion line.

Traveling time from Marseille to Paris is three hours 16 minutes and three hours 10 minutes for the return journey.

The line has been hailed as an engineering and technical marvel with its network of earthquake-proof bridges and stylish new stations.

France's state-owned railway firm SNCF says it has some 800,000 ticket reservations for the next two months alone and predicts that six million people will catch the train before the end of 2003.

The first blue-and-grey, double-decker train pulled out of Marseille at 6:29 a.m. (0429 GMT) and was 90 percent full, the SNCF said. Most early morning, long-distance services are almost empty on Sundays.

It has taken 12 years to complete the line.

More high-speed links to come

The French pride themselves on a quick and efficient rail network, and already have high-speed links with other cities, including the Eurostar to London.

They expect to build more high-speed links with neighbouring countries over the coming decades, providing Europe with a fluid network of cross-border trains.

A high-speed link to Strasbourg on the border with Germany is expected to be running by 2006, bringing the eastern city to within two hours 20 minutes of Paris.

An under-the-Alps link between the central French city of Lyon and the northern Italian city of Turin is expected to be ready in 20 years.

Other high-speed links planned include a link via Perpignan through the Pyrnees to Barcelona in northern Spain.

This latest engineering triumph is also promising to boost the economy of Mediterranean port city Marseille and other southern towns along its route, including Avignon and Aix-en-Provence.

Since the first high-speed rail link was opened between Paris and the central city of Lyon in 1981, rail travel has flourished in France.

Then, it took six hours and 40 minutes to cover the distance between Paris and Marseille, long viewed as a provincial cousin to Paris, and a gathering place for mostly poor immigrants from North Africa.

Now, around 250 kilometres (155 miles) of extra track have been laid between Valence and Avignon, where the line branches in two, with one track heading to Nimes and the other to Marseille.

Five hundred bridges and 20 viaducts were built between Valence and Marseille, during 100 million worker hours. One million trees were planted to meet environmental regulations.

The trains, too, have been given a makeover. New double-decker carriages, boasting a blue-and-silver colour scheme, will be added to the stock by 2004.

The trains running on the new line will also be faster -- cruising at 186 mph compared to 167 previously.

There will be 17 daily trains, and the price of a Paris-Marseille ticket in economy class is $65.