High-speed Bordeaux-Lyon TGV service to launch by 2027
Train will take five hours… but route will avoid central France and instead go north close to Paris
Tickets will start from €19… are you tempted?
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A direct high-speed TGV train service between Bordeaux and Lyon will launch by mid-2027 France’s state rail operator SNCF has announced, amid a wider expansion to its high-speed services across the next 18 months.
Linking the cities in five hours, the route will not be linear between the two destinations.
Instead it will avoid central areas of France, and will stop at major TGV hubs on the rail network including Massy (near Paris, Essonne), Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (near Tours, Indre-et-Loire), Poitiers and Angoulême.
Full timetables are yet to be announced. Tickets will begin from €19, and SNCF aims for half of all adult tickets to be under €30. The company hopes for one million passengers per year on the line.
The announcement has led to criticism from officials in central areas, who were hoping a direct rail link would traverse these departments.
“What we want is the installation of an Intercités train (not TGV) which uses the existing tracks between Lyon and Bordeaux, and would allow us to serve many other neglected cities and metropolitan areas of the Massif Central,” said president of the Aurail collective Marc Goutteroze to AFP.
TGV, or high-speed trains, usually run on dedicated tracks separate from the main network, allowing for quicker journey times at the expense of fewer stops.
There are dedicated TGV lines between Lyon-Paris, and Paris-Bordeaux, which are expected to be used by the service for most of the journey.
Intercités trains use standard tracks and tend to stop at more stations along routes, taking longer but reaching areas untouched by high-speed services.
Expansion to OuiGo train fleet
The new line was announced amid a series of other updates by the rail network for the coming years.
The fleet of OuiGo TGV trains – high-speed but low-cost with a no-frills business model – will expand from 38 to 50, as trains currently running under the InOui banner (the standard TGV trains) are replaced by incoming newer models.
It means that new OuiGo services will run in 2026, including a Paris-Hendaye route via Bordeaux, Dax, Bayonne, and Biarritz, as well as a Paris-Montpellier route via Lyon.
The popular Paris-Rennes OuiGo train will see a third daily return service added.
“By 2030, we will have 30% more trainsets, 30% more seats, and 30% more passengers on the OuiGo network,” said director of high-speed trains at the SNCF Alain Krakovitch.
The SNCF wants to reach 200 million passengers across its high-speed network, including InOui, OuiGo, and Eurostar services in the coming years.
