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AFAIK the French rail system is set up so that Paris-X is a good connection for most X, but travel between city pairs that don't contain Paris is much more diff
by adrianN 6y ago
AFAIK the French rail system is set up so that Paris-X is a good connection for most X, but travel between city pairs that don't contain Paris is much more difficult... because you have to travel via Paris.
- pjerem 6y agoExactly that. And Paris is not really geographically at the center of France.
- dopidopHN 6y agoDefine center. Why do you think I was living there? Why is 1/5 and more of our population living there ? It’s the economical center of the country. And it’s been design intentionally this way dating back to before the revolution. It’s infuriating in many aspect. But it’s not relevant to the conversation of fly travel for distance under 3h in train. ( you can do Paris-Marseille in exactly 3h with fast train. It’s 80% of the nord-sud distance of the country. And it take 6h by car )
- vladvasiliu 6y agoThat's correct. But as others have noted, Paris is the "center" for most anything. There's very little demand for travel between any pair of two (major) cities other than Paris. I should look this up for details, but I seem to remember that there's a train route running parallel to the southern border that was abandoned for lack of demand. And there are some major cities there (Marseille, Montpellier, Toulouse) which aren't all that far apart.