SNCF and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté: a railway that has given up

Tomorrow morning - Saturday 28th March 2026 - I had planned to make a trip I make half a dozen times a year.

After a Friday evening teaching assignment in Paris, I would normally take a TER regional train from Paris back to Nuits-sous-Ravières in Bourgogne on a Saturday morning. These normally run every two hours on weekends, with the trip taking about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Not tomorrow.

There are engineering works.

OK, it happens.

But there are no proper rail replacement bus, and hence no viable way to do the trip at all.

The first two theoretical connections involve TGVs (changing respectively in Montbard and Dijon), and those are both full - so you can neither buy a ticket nor board:

And these are the other options:

The works are between Montereau and Laroche-Migennes, and at the Blaisy tunnel between Les Laumes-Alésia and Dijon. Whether all of this has to happen on the same weekend is questionable, but if it does, then the solution - for a railway that was capable of doing even the basics semi well - is obvious:

Run TRAINS Paris - Montereau, BUSES Montereau - Laroche Migennes, and TRAINS Laroche Migennes - Les Laumes-Alésia. And for anyone going all the way to Dijon, BUSES Laroche Migennes - Dijon on the motorway (that they are actually doing)

This would all be operationally possible, as turning around trains in Laroche Migennes and Les Laumes-Alésia is permitted.

Do it this way and you would have trip times from Paris to St Florentin-Vergigny, Tonnerre, Nuits-sous-Ravières, Montbard and Les Laumes-Alésia of about an hour longer than normal, not the 3 hours longer than normal that is what they are doing.

Why do they not do this?

Because SNCF would never possibly imagine people would actually depend on a TER train as a central part of the way they live, so they do not care. And the Région Bourgogne Franche Comté (that finances TER services) neither understands nor cares enough to sort out adequate rail replacement bus services or force SNCF to do so.

What does this show?

The notion a regional train in France is a service you can rely on is gone. It's done. It is no longer a service that will get you there. Everyone has given up. The service is now a nice to have if you're lucky. It is no longer a public service.

Faced with that and people buy cars instead.