The French government is to invest a further €257 million in improving the rail lines between Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse (POLT) from now until 2025 in order to decrease current journey times by 22 minutes.
The improvements to POLT, the longest non-high speed intercity corridor in France, will see the journey time between Paris and Limoges cut to 2 hours 49 minutes.
French transport minister Jean Baptiste Djebbari said the state would finance two thirds of the cost of the modernisation works and the new money is in addition to €2.2 billion already earmarked to regenerate the lines and acquire new WiFi-enabled trains.
The minister said the new money followed decades of underinvestment in railway lines. The remainder of the €385 million cost of the works would be funded by local groups.
The minister said that despite the pandemic, planning continues and the new trains on the POLT line would be operational by 2023.