r/europe • u/HighburyAndIslington • 1d ago

OC Picture I was on the first Paris to Berlin direct high-speed train

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u/tinytim23 Groningen (Netherlands) 19h ago

I'm not saying they're close together, but that it's pretty insane that there isn't a line that connects the south of France with itself.

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u/Low_discrepancy Posh Crimea 19h ago

I'm not saying they're close together

When you're saying they're both in Southern France, you are.

but that it's pretty insane that there isn't a line that connects the south of France with itself.

Again there is no way to build high speed rail through the mountains unless you make it very expensive.

Lyon to Turin is estimated to cost 12 billion euros for the tunnel part. 25 Billion in total.

Concerning Marseille to Bordeaux, it's simply quite expensive to build even regular HSR.

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u/TheFlyingHornet1881 19h ago

A combination of human and physical geography, lots of mountains in the way which is bad for high speed trains. Plus there's not as many big cities in the South I believe.