The busiest section is Moisenay junction to Pasilly junction (e.g. the end of the Interconnexion to the branch-off towards Dijon). I looked up Monday and direction away from Paris (Gare de Lyon/Massy/CDG). Between 15:50 and 20:00, I counted 46 trains (may have missed some).
Minimum headway was 5 minutes on the old units with old signalling, it's now 3 minutes with the TVM 430. But scheduled times usually alternate between 4 and 6 min, only sometimes down to the 3 min minimum. Yet this is not being generous with time: you need some buffer for lateness, and if the previous train has one more stop, then the next non-stop train must leave a longer buffer for the first train to accelerate back.
So with view to this, between these 46 trains from 15:50 and 20:00, I found just six empty slots (had they been used by trains from Gare de Lyon: 16:14, 16:34, 16:40, 19:34, 19:50, 19:54). And those slots will certainly be filled up once the TGV Rhin-Rhône and the line to Turin are built. Pretty close to saturation. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
However, how is TGV Rhin-Rhône supposed to feed that branch? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Though, it is just the Ouest branch that'll be built last, and until then, Mulhouse will also get access from Paris via Strasbourg, so maybe there won't be much of a frequency increase via Dijon when the first leg opens (2011?). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Madrid-Zaragoza-Irun-Bordeaux-Tours-Paris is 1400 Km according to Google maps. That's 4 hours at 350 Km/h [though I'm not counting the stops]. It would blow all but low-cost flights out of the water, because of the time to get to/from the airports at either end, and the waiting times at check-in and baggage collection. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
As things stand, Zaragoza to Pamplona will be a partial high-speed line, the rest in direction of San Sebastián less certain, while the main route towards Irún will be through the Guadarrama tunnel to Valladolid, across Burgos to Vitoria, then on the Basque Y ("Y Vasca") to Irún (altogether c. 530 km). Madrid to Irún will be c. 2h20m, the Paris to Bordeaux line (535 km), if all ready by 2016, is promised at 2h10m, a Bordeaux-Dax-border line (235 km) could be done in one hour, that would add up to 5h30m. But 350 km/h and non-stop, 1300 km, even 3h50m would seem possible. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Of course, politically, the Autonomous Community of Castilla-Leon would prefer to see Valladolid served first. I wouldn't be surprised if the connection between Burgos and the Basque Y takes a long while to be completed, especially if the PP is in the National government.
Valladolid would likely become a hub in any event, serving Madrid, Burgos-Vitoria, Galicia and Porto. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
