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France: TGV La Poste

It's off to Europe for christmas and I intend on hunting down the odd train. The first on the research list is reminiscent of Dr Yellow from Japan: TGV La Poste. This service is an express freight EMU (not unlike the M250 of Sagawa Transport) for the French Postal Service based on the TGV series.

Source: RailPictures.net: Special TGV La Poste "Operation Pieces jaunes" Blois - Tarbes. [Author: LM]

I'm going to use this page as a thinking-out-loud scratchpad to record the information I'm able to obtain. The goal is to grab a shot of it in action down the line and then one (at least) in the depot near Gare De Lyon in Paris.

NOTE: It seems this effort will be futile... the sun won't rise until around 8am and the train is due to run only during the dark-hours. this link has the timings for 2015.

Web References

• Forum LR PRESSE : TGV La Poste
• Photos-de-Trains.net : Horaires TGV postal départ de Cavaillon
• Trains en Voyage : Gares et horaires du TGV La Poste?
• Benelux Spoor : TGV fotoplekken en dienstregeling TGV La Poste
• Railfan Europe : TGV La Poste
• virtualglobetrotting : Half-consist stored at Villeneuve-St George
• La Poste to streamline courier products and invest in rail transport
  Bad news... will the service still be running in January 2015?
• French HS (6): TGV-LaPoste, Postal TGVs
  More information in English on the service.
• The TGV railway La Poste will cease operation in 2015
  Could be a bad translation... but looks like the service will run until at least mid-2015.
• Railpictures : SNCF TGV SE 952 La Poste at Crisenoy - Daniel Minaca
• Someones entire sightings for 2008
• Trains Francais : Calendrier TGV La Poste
  Hints on what times are during daylight
• Simtrain-FR : info TGV poste.
• e-train forum: Latest timings

• YouTube - Croisement entre un TGV La Poste et un TGV Duplex
  TGV La Poste passes a TGV Duplex near Penne-sur-Huveaune, between Marseille and Nice
• YouTube - Postal TGV at high speed (Unknown Location)

Timetables

From all of the above data, I've managed to scrape together the following timetable of the services. From the links, you can tell that this data is old... really old. I am under the impression that the service will be wound-down in 2015, but hope that one or two of the services below will be running in January.

There's a double-up on times around Macon for most of the services. It seems that the train arrives at Macon-Loché, heads in to Macon-ville and then back out on it's way via Macon-Loché once more.

Plotting the path

The plan...

Based on the timings above, it's going to be really hard to see this thing in daylight, moving, whilst being based in Paris. My best bet will probably be to head down to the RER stations 'Maisons-Alfort Alfortville' or 'Le Vert de Maisons' early in the morning and hope for the best. It'll be mid-winter, so lighting will be low.

I'll post again once executed.
Update: Paris, January 2015.