“We will no longer provide co-financing”: the Region's investment in railway infrastructure slows

La modernisation de la voie entre Nîmes et Le Grau-du-Roi (Gard) est un des chantiers potentiellement impactés. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

Making the train one of the major axes of its policy and taking into account the aging of “small lines” long neglected and on which its TERs run or could run tomorrow, the Region launched, in 2020, an 800 million euro rail plan for the 1,400 km of tracks concerned. Modernizations, reopening of tracks, against a backdrop of tensions with the State, the owner, the community is suspending its funding.

The decisions had been emerging in Carole Delga's remarks for weeks. On December 10, regarding the now closed Rodez-Millau line: “Budgetary circumstances require us, for the time being, to suspend the project.” On December 19, in assembly during the debate on budgetary orientations of the Regional Council: “The Region will stop compensating for the State's disengagements, particularly in terms of railway investment, for a network that the State owns.”

Let's add the “suspension”, not “an abandonment”, the reopening of the Limoux-Quillan line (€60 million), specified Jean-Louis Gibelin, Deputy Vice-President for Transport, on December 11. Or Alès-Bessèges, still at the study stage and postponed to 2028 (€80 million), and it is a halt to the community's investments included in an €800 million Rail Plan approved in 2020, which was looming. It is confirmed, well beyond the line relaunches, for the modernization of the so-called fine service lines of the territory in operation, against a backdrop of tension with the State.

Fine service lines, operated, reopened or not: the map. Midi Libre – Antoine Llop

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

“More co-financing”

On Tuesday, in front of the press, the director of SNCF Réseau for Occitanie, Catherine Trevet, described 2025 as “a special situation”, regarding the Rail Plan. A “put on hold”, the “revision of the trajectory”, according to the “budgets of the communities” which it was waiting to take note of. The work will therefore be reduced “to the finalization of engineering works on the Yellow Train and the Aubrac”. Very little compared to the “major operations” carried out in 2024 on the Lozère “H” or Nîmes-Le Grau-du-Roi, for example, and without perspective, knowing that it takes two to three years to build the files and program for a construction site.

In fact, the break is more radical, to the point of calling into question the future of the Plan Rail Agency, created in 2021 by SNCF Réseau to support this €800 million investment, which was to reach “300 (agents) in the works phase”, explained Emmanuelle Saura, Catherine Trevet's predecessor, then.

“In view of the state's budgetary situation and a voted budget whose translation will certainly not be immediate, we are no longer, says Jean-Louis Gibelin, to co-finance the infrastructure. We acted as a substitute for the State; we have largely participated in the plan since the beginning and the State has not done its part. We invite it to take it and we will see”, suggests the elected official, the Region itself being prey to a complex budgetary situation, which encourages it to make choices.

SNCF Réseau invested 500 million euros in 2025

What could be the impact of this situation, when, moreover, the SNCF network subsidiary maintains “500 M€ of investments,details Catherine Trevet, 50% from our own funds and 50% provided by our partners”, including the Region, this year, in Occitanie ? A total in line with those of 2023 and 2024, respectively €483 million and €555 million, and which will concern 35 projects.

The challenge is none other than the quality of the service. That is to say the regularity and reliability of the circulation of TER, regional express trains, on which the Regional Council has based part of its mobility and decarbonization policy, aiming for the milestone of 100,000 daily passengers, in the long term. The investments in the Rail Plan must guarantee the improvement of this quality and support the increase – a real success – of users of the red TER liO.

Trains slowing down

“The first consequence of the regeneration work that will not be carried out, says a railway worker, and therefore of the ageing of the infrastructure, will be the slowing down of trains”, which would lengthen journey times, require changing frequencies, or even reducing them.

If we add to this the order for trains that the Region has postponed, while the current trains are packed at peak times, the user will not gain much. “What matters is that the State assumes its responsibility for its heritage, insists Jean-Louis Gibelin. It is up to it to decide what it wants to do with it, if it has an interest. We believe we have shown this for years.”

The Region, project owner of the Montréjeau – Luchon line (Haute-Garonne) which it had obtained the transfer into its heritage, should reopen it to TER traffic at the end of 2025. It will accommodate the future TER trains with hydrogen engines developed by Alstom, in Tarbes. I subscribe to read the rest