Operator: SNCF
Headcode: Intercités 3831
Route: Nantes-La Rochelle
Class: First
Seat: Coach 5, Seat 046
Date: Thursday 28th July 2022
After a great, but too short, time exploring Nantes (read about that here), I was up early to make my way to the station ready to catch a train back to La Rochelle. Having booked a specific train in advance, the fares were reasonable and so I decided to spend a few euros extra and try out first-class onboard SNCF’s Intercités product.
Arriving at the station about 45-minutes before my train departed, I decided to grab a coffee and make my way up to the main concourse. Whilst Nantes does have a first-class lounge, everything I could find online seemed to indicate this was only for passengers on TGV services and not Intercités. With my French not up to asking if I was allowed, I decided to give the lounge a miss.
However, with the station’s main concourse spanning the platforms and having large floor to ceiling windows, I enjoyed 20-minutes watching the trains come and go as Nantes is a much busier station than La Rochelle. In addition to a wide range of local services across the Pays de la Loire region, Nantes is also served by TGV services to Lille, Marseille, Montpellier, Paris and Strasbourg, as well as Intercités services to Bordeaux and Lyon. With a TGV Strasbourg service boarding, I was quite impressed to see that 850+km from close to the Atlantic coast to France’s eastern border took a little over 5 hours.
Whilst our platform wasn’t announce until about 15-minutes before departure, I was able to position myself close to it having spotted a unit I believe was ours sitting in platform six. Whilst the modern bi-mode, dual-voltage B 85000 units operate on both the Intercités and TER networks, SNCF tends to brand its units in accordance with the divisions they are operating for, with our six-car unit in Intercités livery and the majority of the other smaller units in the station being in TER Pays-de-la-Loire branding.
Heading down the platform, I found the first-class area towards the middle of the train, spread across a couple of carriages. The interior is pretty similar to 2nd class with the same seats (although a little wider) and a mix of airline style and groups of four around a table. Each seat has its own power socket (compared to one between two in 2nd) however there’s no USB sockets or Wi-Fi available.
Just before departure there was some confusion as another passenger came up and, after a bit of a language barrier, stated I was sat in their seat. Upon an initial glance at my ticket and their e-ticket, it did seem that was the case and so they sat down at another seat to await the Chef de Train. It turns out that the other passenger was actually on the wrong train and whilst my printed ticket showed the train I was on, their e-ticket only showed the time when the QR code was scanned. Whilst I’m generally pro-technology in travel, I do tend to find I prefer paper tickets and boarding passes as you then have all the information in front of you and don’t run the risk of your phone dying.
Departing Nantes at 0754, 1 minute early, we accelerated out of the city centre and were soon crossing the twin branches of the Loire on our way south. With the early start, breakfast onboard would have been ideal, however unfortunately, like the journey to Nantes, this service did not have any catering onboard. As I said in the post about that journey north, for less than a couple of hours, no catering is do-able, however if you’re travelling between Nantes and Bordeaux, two of France’s major cities, on a journey of 4+ hours, a coffee is probably going to be desired.
Journeys between Nantes and La Rochelle have just two intermediate stations, La Roche-sur-Yon and Luçon, both large towns in the Pays-de-Loire region, although the former is slightly larger than the latter. Certainly neither station was an unrequired stop, with plenty of passengers boarding and alighting at both stations.
As the Canal de Rompsay appeared on the right-hand side of the train, our journey to La Rochelle was drawing to the close and the final feature of note was the branch from La Rochelle’s smaller ‘Porte Dauphine’ station merging just before our arrival. This branch actually runs to the Port de la Pallaice and passenger services used to run through to the port, however closures over the years saw services removed from the route, only returning to the short section to ‘Port Dauphine’ in 2008.
Arriving in to Gare de La Rochelle Ville at 0938, we had kept running one minute early throughout the journey. Reflecting on the journey, I probably wouldn’t bother with 1st class onboard SNCF’s Intercités services again as, other than the 2-1 seating, I don’t really see what benefit there is gained by paying for the upgrade. Essentially, if you’re traveling on SNCF between Bordeaux, La Rochelle & Nantes, I’d just buy a 2nd class ticket.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 3*
Food 0*
Service 5*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 13/25 (read about my rating system here)
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