France postpones order for new night trains worth about €1bn
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- Transport minister Philippe Tabarot says on the radio station RTL on 23 December 2025 that the order for numerous night trains worth about EUR 1 billion, planned for January, cannot be placed and must be postponed because the 2026 budget has not been passed
Delivery of the trains, which are meant to replace the roughly 50-year-old Corail coaches from the end of 2029 or the early 2030s, risks slipping further; the government is counting on a 2026 budget in the first weeks of January, but nothing is certain.
In February 2025 the state put out to tender, for EUR 1 billion, the purchase of 180 trains and 27 locomotives so that the roughly 50-year-old Corail coaches of the Trains d'équilibre du territoire (TET) services can be replaced; as the responsible authority it funds this almost entirely loss-making offer in full. In March 2025 it also launched the procedure to open the routes to competition: the contract is to be awarded in 2028 and the new operation is to start in December 2030 for eight years, so a new operator could benefit from the new trains. (LOK Report, 30 Dec 2025; second source: CNews, 23 Dec 2025)
Source: lok-report.de ↗ · Archived copy ↗
Further sources: cnews.fr ↗ (Archived copy ↗)
Evidence: 2 independent sources · How well sourced is Eurotrack?
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