The latest delay was the last straw for the Auvergne travelers. The eight-hour delay on January 19th was too much, prompting the government to reprimand SNCF. The railway company was ordered to present an emergency plan, which is set to be detailed on Friday.
Jean-Pierre Farandou had 15 days to submit the plan, which is now being presented on Friday in Clermont. He is accompanied (or perhaps monitored) by three ministers: Christophe Béchu, the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Dominique Faure, the Minister Delegate for Local Government and Rural Affairs, and Patrice Vergriete, the Minister Delegate for Transport. It is expected that similar announcements to those made last Monday for the Paris-Limoges-Toulouse line will be made for the Clermont-Paris line.
The lack of reliability of the locomotives assigned to the Clermont-Paris line is the main but not the only problem. They suffer from regular breakdowns, and the railway unions attribute this to a lack of maintenance. This has led to the cancellation of one daily round trip for two and a half months. Additional locomotives are expected, but the details remain unclear.
The securement of the line is also likely to be addressed, as well as the improvement of passenger information. The new Oxygene trains are expected to be in service next year, with all of them delivered by the end of 2026.
Many improvements are in progress until 2027, but achieving a travel time of 2 hours and 30 minutes for the Clermont-Paris route remains uncertain.
