Revealed: France's five worst rail lines for delays and cancellations

Local France

15-04-2025

Despite the fact that France's train operator SNCF has a generally positive reputation - especially among travellers from outside the country, dozens of elected officials and residents boarded Paris-bound 'trains of anger' on Tuesday to demand improvements and investment in rail services.
The protesters were specifically focused on two lines - the Paris-Nevers-Clermont and Paris-Limoges routes,
which have witnessed an increasing number of severe delays, disruptions and cancellations.
Organisers hoped to gather between 500 and 800 demonstrators, along with rail workers, at Paris's Gare d'Austerlitz station.
The Paris-Nevers-Clermont route has been branded 'one of the worst lines in France', with passengers reporting a four-hour delay on January 31st, and one of nearly three-and-a-half hours on March 1st.
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According to data published by SNCF in 2024, and reported by
Franceinfo
, 10 percent of trains on this route were late or cancelled, which – for all the problems – actually puts it among the best performing lines.
What is considered late?
Confusingly, SNCF timekeeping rules consider that if a train's journey is more than three hours, that train is on time if it arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time.
Furthermore, France's transport watchdog, the
Autorité de régulation des transports
, only classes a service as 'cancelled' if it is taken out of service after 4pm the day before it was due to run.
With this in mind, here are the worst rail lines in France for delays and cancellations for TGV and Intercités services.
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Paris-Austerlitz-Briançon
In 2024, an astonishing 49 percent of trains between the capital and the Hautes-Alpes' commune were late or cancelled. In February alone, 90 percent of journeys arrived later than the 15-minute 'on-time' window.
On March 14th, Minister for Transport Philippe Tabarot announced that 180 carriages and 27 locomotives will replace currently operating rolling stock – much of which is approaching 50 years old – by 2030.
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Paris-Nice
A long journey, this one. Slow night trains take over 12 hours, while even the fastest TGV journey is closer to six than five hours.
Of the 640 slower Intercités trains that ran between Paris-Austerlitz and Nice-Ville in 2024, one in three (33 percent) were late or cancelled, including half the services in June last year. Some, it was reported, were delayed by more than three hours.
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Planned investment on the Paris-Briançon route is expected to benefit users of the Paris-Nice line. The two lines share the same section before separating, one towards the Hautes-Alpes, the other towards the Côte d'Azur.
Bordeaux - Marseille
The second busiest Intercités line in France faced similar levels of delays in 2024, when 31 percent of trains were delayed or cancelled. The reason: dilapidated rolling stock and infrastructure.
According to regional newspaper La Provence, in January 2024, users of this line had to cope with a breakdown that caused three-hour delays on later journeys.
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In December 2024, however, the French government announced that it would finance an order for 22 Oxygène trains from the Spanish manufacturer CAF. They are due to enter service by 2027.
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Lyon - Marne la Vallée
The apparently two-hour TGV service between Lyon Part-Dieu and Marne-la-Vallée, where you'll find Disneyland Paris, saw 24 percent of its trains delayed or cancelled in 2024. On average, trains were 30 minutes late on arrival at their terminus.
According to SNCF, the majority of these delays were due to traffic management problems, followed by infrastructure problems and 'external causes'.
Lyon - Lille
In 2024, 23 percent of trains between Lyon and Lille were late or cancelled. On average, trains were 34 minutes late on arrival. According to SNCF, the majority of these delays were also due to traffic management and infrastructure issues.
What recourse do I have if my train is delayed or cancelled?
You may qualify for a full or partial refund.
On high-speed domestic TGV InOui trains and regional Intercités services, you cannot get any refund for a delay of less than 30 minutes.
However, you can get 25 percent of your ticket back for 30 minutes and two hours of delays; 50 percent of your ticket back for a delay of two to three hours; and 75 percent back for a delay of more than three hours.
For budget OuiGo services, you do not qualify for compensation if the delay is under an hour. You can get 25 percent back for a delay of an hour to two hours, and you can get half of your ticket back for a delay of more than two hours.
You can find instructions on the
SNCF website.