Very high speed : 25 years of success to share, ALSTOM
continues to innovate

However, ALSTOM Transport is already planning for the
future. Further improvements to their very high speed trains are
envisaged, enhancing speed, mproving the quality of life on
board, passenger comfort and protection, all without forgetting
environmental preservation. Tomorrow's concepts are already in the production phase.
They articulate around two technological platforms, based on
proven design principles and on new reasonable choices in terms
of motorisation and optimisation of train architecture. The
first, with a double deck, meets the requirements of the French
market for more capacity. It is designed to upgrade the existing
TGV Duplex, while preserving the concentrated motorisation,
towards a "Jumbo" capacity. This train will be capable of
providing, over a length of 400 m, a capacity of 1200 seats,
more than two TGV Duplex trains assembled together. The second new concept, called AGV (ALSTOM Grande Vitesse
ALSTOM High Speed), with a single-deck, is developed
along a new architecture and technology, designed to complete the
range on offer to our customers. This fourth generation of very
high speed trains, designed for inter-region rail links between
cities, will carry up to 600 seated passengers at a speed that
could reach 350 km/h. This performance will be achieved thanks to
the advances in the fields of power electronics and electrical
engineering, the use of composite materials to make light-weight
trains and to aerodynamic testing. Thanks to this new technology
a journey from Paris to Toulouse in France covered in 5 hours
today will take only 2 hours 30 minutes. To celebrate a quarter of century of a train that has
radically changed the outlook of railway transport in France, an
exhibition dedicated to the TGV has been set up at the Trocadero
in Paris on September 22 and 23, 2006. Among other things,
visitors will be able to explore a power car for the TGV-Est
arriving straight from our Belfort plants.