Railway / high-speed line connection study (2010)

The future Roissy Carex Railport will be located near the high-speed "North-Europe" line to the North-West of Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. It is advisable to create a rail spur in order to connect the terminal to the HSL.

Roissy Carex asked RFF to launch the initialisation study after having conducted preliminary studies in 2004-2006. This series of more detailed preliminary studies was entrusted to the INEXIA consultancy firm by RFF and co-funded by the railway infrastructure management authority, Roissy Carex, the Île-de-France Region and the Regional Public Works Directorate.

The analysis which was completed in January 2010 was about : 

• Consideration of the radioelectric easements for the railway levels and the catenary systems required due to the proximity of the airport runways.
• The terminal positioning
• The dimensioning of the terminal and the set of tracks calculated according to the hourly train path needs expressed by the Carex shippers group (GEC) and adjusted by RFF
• The possible connection assumptions and their variants as well as their respective costs

Short connection or long connection?

2 points connecting to the current North Europe HSL have been studied by Inexia resulting in a short connection and a long connection:

• By taking account of the traffic and the night and day timetable assumptions and the increase in Carex service activity, it seems possible to initially create a short at-grade connection (approx. 1,800m) allowing an HSL insertion speed of 80 km/h. Its cost is evaluated at 99.5 million euros.
• If rapid freight and day passenger traffic were to exceed the current assumptions, it may be necessary to then construct a longer connection with a flyover. The total cost of the investment would thus rise to approx. € 150m.