France: “The failure rate for Alstom’s RER New Generation trainsets remains well above target”, said Transilien SNCF Voyageurs. Also the transport authority Ile-De-France Mobilités has publicly accused the French train builder of “poor manufacturing quality”.
The first double-system X’Trapolis was put in service in the region in November 2023. SNCF has ordered a total of 166 trains, of which 36 have been delivered and 26 are in service.
While it is impossible to find publicly available information on the technical readiness of the trains, the operator has stopped accepting trains indefinitely. According to Le Figaro, the number of breakdowns during the trial runs of the new trains was twice as high as expected and four times higher than for the previous generation. The Île-de-France transport authority said that in January 2025, only 87.9% of trains were on time.
Alstom attributes the problems to different requirements for rail lubrication. The rails are lubricated by trains’ own equipment, and the new rolling stock requires less lubricant than the older trains that began operation since 1997. The company also highlights that the incompatibility of lubricants due to their composition, which prevents them from mixing during application. According to Alstom, this creates a risk of wheel spin, which requires additional cleaning of the rails to allow the new trains to run.
While the two companies work together to develop a long-term solution to the lubricant problem, SNCF has implemented a temporary approach to reduce the amount of lubricant on the rails. Other reasons cited for the technical problems include software failures leading to numerous incidents and increased complexity of maintenance operations leading to an increase in maintenance time and costs.
