France to allocate 160 million euros to boost rail freight along the Mediterranean

Logistics stakeholders gathered in the southern French city of Montpellier last week to discuss the development of rail freight in the western Mediterranean arc. During the conference, an agreement between the French State and the Occitanie region, in France’s southwest, signed in June and covering the period 2023-2027, was presented. The plan includes an investment package totalling 160 million euros dedicated exclusively to freight.

For its part, SNCF Réseau Occitanie is putting 300 million euros on the table to regenerate the region’s core rail network. Organised by France’s rail network manager SNCF Réseau, attendees included the French ports of Sète, Perpignan and Port-la-Nouvelle and the port of Barcelona and also LFP Perthus, the Catalonia-based operator of the high-speed, international section of the Figueras-Perpignan railway line.

Identifying rail freight hubs in France

The State and the Occitanie region are in agreement on the need to continue to strengthen infrastructures by relying on very strong rail hubs. These would include the port of Sète, Perpignan Saint-Charles, Le Boulou and Port-la-Nouvelle, as Catherine Trevet, territorial director of SNCF Réseau Occitanie, underlined in an interview with French media.

“However, we also need to strengthen international connectivity. The European corridors will enable us to encourage massive freight flows, but there is a requirement to create partnerships with all the players. Airbus, for example, is switching freight from air to rail for the first time. That’s the future”, Trevet added.

The gauge question

The issue of standardising railway gauges in Europe was also discussed at the conference with Petros Papaghiannakis, managing director of LFP Perthus. He explained that, while rail landscape is the same as it was in 2012, Spain is making colossal investments to ensure that there are no more load breaks in services to France.

“From now on, a freight train from Perpignan to Barcelona will take 3 hours 20 minutes without a break in load, with optimum punctuality and safety conditions. We’re on the cusp of a major boom: in the second half of 2025, Tarragona, a dynamic (Spanish) port with a significant petrochemicals zone, will be accessible, followed by Valencia in 2027, and the entire Spanish coast as far as Algeciras, at the gateway to Morocco, by 2030.”

Other challenges remain

While the European Commission is pushing for the migration to a standard European gauge, trains crossing the continent will still be confronted with a multitude of different systems, such as signalling and electrification, for some time yet. “Interoperability will be achieved in stages, but not before 2030, 2040 and then 2050. We are talking about an investment of 2,000 billion euros in Europe,”according to Darius Kowsar, director, Europe, at SNCF Réseau Europe.

He noted that a second challenge is to to connect the missing links in Europe’s rail network, such as the Lyon-Turin line, which has been closed following a landslide and whose re-opening date remains uncertain. “We are also working on other processes, such as revising our capacity system, since 80% of the rail infrastructure is currently shared between freight trains, passenger trains and regional express trains. As an intermediate step, digital engineering can play a crucial role,” he added.