Loco Hauled Trains in France

[Mag_seven]

I'm looking to travel around the north of France in November.

What trains are loco hauled in the area. Would be looking at the Lille, Amiens and Strasbourg areas as an example.

As an aside does anyone know if this train is loco hauled?

Train TER N°17758 - 13:29 Dijon to Paris Gare De Bercy Bourg

 

[MarcVD]

A few trains per day between Paris and Maubeuge and vv. BB22200 and Corail stock. Some of them give a connection to an AM96 SNCB to/from Charleroi in Maubeuge, and to Mons in Aulnoye.

 

[StephenHunter]

Amiens to Paris-Nord services are regularly hauled by 15000 and 22000 locomotives on VR2N and Corail stock.

Strasbourg has hourly, IIRC, 26000-hauled Corail services to Basel and some 27000 stuff heading towards Nancy?

 

[MarcVD]

Strasbourg has hourly, IIRC, 26000-hauled Corail services to Basel

push-pull corail stock, 200 km/h running between Strasbourg and Mulhouse.

 

[StephenHunter]

Yes, that's right. Plus RRR stock push-pull working with 27000. The 185 hauled Nightjet to Paris also runs through there.

 

[Jamesrob637]

South of France used to have old engines but maybe not anymore.

 

[rg177]

The Lyon-Géneve TER was BB22000 and Corail stock when I used it yesterday.

The Lyon-Marseille TER was also the same, albeit with a longer consist.

 

[D6130]

Slightly out of the area in question, but the Paris Austerlitz-Limoges-Brive-Toulouse 'InterCities' services are still loco-hauled - either by BB7200 locos on 160 km/h timings or BB26000 'Sybics' on 200 km/h timings. Also the Paris Austerlitz-La Tour de Carol/Rodez-Albi/Briancon overnight services are electric-hauled from Paris and - in the case of the latter two - hauled by BB67400 diesels South of Brive and Valence respectively. Returning to Northern France, there are - or were last time I was there - some peak hour semi-fasts out of Paris Est to various destinations on the classic line to Strasbourg and there are also several BB27000 + push-pull outer surburban services out of Paris St Lazare. Something to look forward to for a future trip perhaps?....but don't leave it too long, as the Alstom 'Regiolis' inter-city EMUs are being delivered at a rapid pace.

 

[dazzler]

Also the Paris Austerlitz-La Tour de Carol/Rodez-Albi/Briancon overnight services are electric-hauled from Paris and - in the case of the latter two - hauled by BB67400 diesels South of Brive and Valence respectively.

The Paris Austerlitz - Briançon overnight service has been hauled by pairs of BB75000 diesels south of Valence for quite some time now. It was certainly BB75000s in 2017, when I last used it (And CC72000 hauled before that.)

French Wikipedia has a nice photo of a pair of BB75000 arriving at Briançon.

(For completeness, the train loco to/from Paris on the last occasion I used it was a BB26000, with a BB7200 to haul the ECS in/out of Austerlitz.)

 

[CC 72100]

The Paris Austerlitz - Briançon overnight service has been hauled by pairs of BB75000 diesels south of Valence for quite some time now. It was certainly BB75000s in 2017, when I last used it (And CC72000 hauled before that.)

French Wikipedia has a nice photo of a pair of BB75000 arriving at Briançon.

(For completeness, the train loco to/from Paris on the last occasion I used it was a BB26000, with a BB7200 to haul the ECS in/out of Austerlitz.)

67400s have appeared in the last year on isolated occasions due to 75000 unavailability, but booked for the latter, as you say.

The BB27300 combinations discussed earlier up thread are also on borrowed time with the Francilien units taking on everything suburban out of Paris Saint Lazare.

I did read that 3 (4?) 27300 and VB2N sets have to gone the region Grand Est to cover for overhauls but I wouldn't go chasing them; they're pretty dull as locos go and not the best to travel on. Perhaps they will at least be on more appealing workings out in the provinces than the Transilien J to improve things...

Lyon-Marseille TER are 3 trains each way a day.

As for the OP, I can confirm TER17758 WAS hauled back in May, but there is an order of units being delivered which will see the end of lengthy Corail push-pull formations on Paris-Dijon-Lyon. As is standard for France the units are too short so the trains * should * spend most of their time in UM2 (until they're short and you'll get a single unit turning up, invariably.) The stock did seem a bit down at the heel with some quite notable corrosion on several vehicles and some scratch sets which had random TER Haute Normandie coaches with high density seating in them after units ousted them from the Le Havre and Rouen services last year.

 

[dazzler]

Many thanks for the update @CC 72100! Nice to know there's still the occasional run out for some of the older locos.

 

[ricohallo]

There's also the 22200s with VR2N double deck sets around Lille and the former Nord Pas De Calais region.
Next to that 15000s with V2N stock can be found on some TER services from Paris Nord particularly to Amiens and Saint Quentin.
22200s with Corail are used from Paris Nord to Maubeuge but also shorter runs to Saint Quentin and Cambrai. Not sure whether they still use Corail coaches on Paris to Amiens services, everything continuing beyond Amiens towards Boulogne has been replaced with Régiolis trainsets.
The Mo-Fr twice daily TER service Paris - Strasbourg consists of a 26000 with Corail coaches from the Grand Est region. These also work the frequent TER services between Basel and Strasbourg as well as some TER services from Strasbourg to Nancy and Metz.
22200s with RRR can be found from Strasbourg to Saverne and Sélestat. 67400s with RRR also run peak hour trains from Strasbourg to Saint Diè des Vosges, Barr and Lauterbourg.
Recently the region Grand Est acquired some 27300s with VB2N stock which are primarily used around Nancy (IIRC mostly to Strasbourg and Épinal).

The loco hauled trains from Paris Bercy towards Dijon and Lyon with Corail stock are currently in the process of being replaced by new trainsets so these are a bit of a gamble.

Some more loco hauled Corail services I know about are the TER services from Paris Austerlitz to Orléans and Tours, the Intercités trains from Paris Austerlitz towards Brive and Toulouse, Intercités from Paris Bercy to Clermont-Ferrand, of course the Intercités de Nuit trains from Paris Austerlitz, several TER trains in the Auvergne Rhône Alpes Region (I've encountered them on Lyon - Chambéry, Lyon - Aix-les-Bains and Chambéry - Grenoble), TER services from Lyon to Marseille, TER services from Marseille to Nice and the Intercités services between Marseille and Bordeaux.

There should also still be some loco hauled services with double deck stock out of Paris Saint Lazare.
And of course there are the recently introduced Ouigo Classique services with 22200s and Corail all in pink Ouigo livery between Paris Austerlitz - Nantes and Paris Bercy - Lyon.

This is everything I can think of at the moment, but I might've missed some other services I forgot or don't know about.
If you have an Android phone I would suggest downloading the Assistent SNCF app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sncf.fusion) which shows the planned train formations when you view the details of a particular service. You want to look out for trains without information about the train formation. The app tells you what kind of trainsets will be used. When there's no information about the type of trainset used then 9 out of 10 times it's a loco hauled train.
Not sure whether it's also available/has the same functionality on iOS.