the South Europe Atlantic High Speed Line

More than half of the major transport flows between northern France, northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula take the Atlantic route. Constantly increasing, this traffic causes ever greater congestion, mainly on the roads. The new South Europe Atlantic High Speed Line will offer a solution to these growing transport needs, both for passengers and for freight.
 

The main goals of this new high speed connection are to:

bring Bordeaux within 2 hours 10 minutes of Paris, compared to the current journey time of 3 hours,
transport 19-20 million passengers every year,
free up traffic slots on the current line, in order to develop freight traffic and regional express train traffic (a further 400-500,000 passengers per year),
encourage more people to travel by train as a preferred alternative to cars and planes.
 

303km of new track between Tours and Bordeaux:

crossing three regions: Centre, Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine,
travelling through 6 departments: Indre-et-Loire, Vienne, Deux-Sèvres, Charente, Charente-Maritime and Gironde.

Map of the South Europe Atlantic High Speed Line (PDF, 471kb)
 

The total cost of the project is estimated at 7 billion euros. Funding will come as part of a Public-Private Partnership in the form of a concession. This will be the first high speed line to benefit from this type of partnership.
 

Angoulême-Bordeaux section declared a Public Utility in July 2006
Tours-Angoulême section declared a Public Utility in June 2009
Due to open in 2016