The closure of the Frejus line from August 2023 to March 2025 19/05/25

Link: IM24-R_politica-trasporti

Original article in Italian

The closure of the Frejus line from August 2023 to March 2025: what lessons should be learned

The management body of the TEN-T Freight Corridor "Mediterranean" held a seminar in Modane on 15 May to discuss the consequences of the long interruption of traffic on the Frejus line (due to the landslide in French territory) and to highlight what lessons should be learned from these experiences that periodically repeat themselves (think of the Rastatt incident on 12 August 2017, with an interruption of only 51 days but very high economic damage).

The seminar focused on three points:

OBSERVATIONS

- The restoration work on the landslide slope, costing EUR 14 million, was managed in collaboration between the Department of Savoie and SNCF Réseau, on the basis of timing and technology choices that would result in the least cost to public funding . - The other interested parties were never involved in these decisions, but were only formally notified afterwards.

- The damage to combined transport operators and rail freight companies, as well as to the affected economic actors, has clearly not been taken into account .

LESSONS

- The railway lines available as diversions were either inferior in technical parameters (via Marseille-Ventimiglia) or very long (via Basel) and the capacity of the Swiss alternative was further reduced by the accident in the Gotthard Base Tunnel.

- The train tracks that were used on the access lines to Frejus have been reassigned to other trains at this time, making it very complicated to now recover them to resume pre-closure traffic.

- No compensation has been offered by the responsible infrastructure manager (SNCF Réseau) for the additional costs resulting from the longer route of the diversions and for the damages resulting from them to the operators involved.

CONCLUSIONS (for policy makers - National and European)

- The assessment of collateral damage resulting from such events should be included in the estimates when deciding on the technique of the works to be done and the related budget.

- The infrastructure manager's insurance coverage should be required to cover not only the restoration costs, but also the operators' additional costs and other losses.

- Managers of the affected infrastructure should consider reopening a line after closure, ensuring that the previous paths are available for freight operators.

This lack of perspective in managing the effects of the accident has resulted in the AFA Torino-Aiton service being an "illustrious victim", as is known, which is highly requested by users but which is unable to restart due to the economic losses of the operator and the lack of interest shown by the two Italian and French governments.