Францияның жоғары жылдамдықты темір жолы (Frantsiyaning joghary jyldamdyqty temir zholy)

French high speed railway

The Ligne à Grande Vitesse Nord (English : North High Speed Line), typically shortened to LGV Nord, is a French long high speed rail line, opened in 1993, that connects Paris to the Belgian border and the Channel Tunnel via Lille. With a maximum speed of , the line appreciably shortened rail journeys between Paris and Lille. Its extensions to the north (Belgium, the Channel Tunnel) and the south (via the LGV Interconnexion Est) have reduced journey times to Great Britain and Benelux and for inter regional trips between the Nord (Pas de Calais) region and the southeast and southwest of France. Its route is twinned with the A1 for , which is why it was given its official nickname, the A1 Highway. As it is mostly built in flat areas, the maximum incline is 25 metres per kilometre (2.5‰). Of all French high speed lines, the LGV Nord sees the widest variety of high speed rolling stock: the TGV POS, TGV Réseau, TGV Atlantique, TGV Duplex, Eurostar e300, Eurostar e320, Thalys PBA and PBKA as well as rolling stock on local trains. Traffic is controlled by the Lille rail traffic centre.

The LGV Nord begins at Arnouville lès Gonesse, from the Gare du Nord on the Paris–Lille railway line. At Vémars, the LGV Interconnexion Est joins it via a triangular junction, leading to Charles de Gaulle Airport and Marne la Vallée Chessy; this enables direct trains from London and Amsterdam to Disneyland Paris, as well as the southern destinations (Lyon, Avignon and Marseille)

After passing east of the forest of Ermenonville over the viaduc de Verberie, it joins the A1 around Chevrières and accompanies it to the Lille suburbs. At Ablaincourt Pressoir (Somme), a new station, Gare TGV Haute Picardie, is served only by inter regional TGVs. At Croisilles, Pas de Calais, a junction leads to the Agny link towards Arras. The LGV crosses the A1 autoroute at Seclin (Nord). At Fretin, a triangular junction links the LGV to the Lille Brussels HSL 1 high speed line eastwards, crossing the border at Wannehain and joining the conventional network at Lembeek, south of Brussels. After the Fretin junction, the LGV has a connection to the conventional network at Lezennes, near Lille. This junction is used for TGVs terminating at Lille, which use Lille Flandres. TGVs that continue beyond Lille, as well as some Eurostar services, stop at Lille Europe instead. Non stop Eurostars pass through a tunnel under the city of Lille at
The line passes south of Armentières and north of Hazebrouck. At Cassel, a link provides a connection with Dunkirk. The LGV continues west, crossing the A26 autoroute at Zouafques and ends at Calais Fréthun, at the Eurotunnel terminal. This enables TGV service to Calais and Eurostars through the Channel Tunnel to London. The TGVs continue to Calais Ville or reverse in either Calais stations and go on to Boulogne sur Mer and Étaples Le Touquet and Rang du Fliers Verton. The route was much criticised, particularly by those in the Picardy region. The LGV crosses the region without a stop; Amiens in particular would have liked to have been on the line. The government judged a route via Amiens to be impracticable, as the Lille route demanded a straight line between Paris and Lille in order to give a reasonable Paris Lille London journey time. The LGV Picardie project would address this issue by serving Amiens, and would reduce the Paris–London journey time to less than 2 hours.

The line was designed to facilitate European connections. The foreseen opening of the Channel Tunnel made it a project of the utmost urgency, leading to an acceleration of work. It opened in 1993, a year before the tunnel, from Arnouville to Fréthun; the Belgian section followed in 1997.

At present, only Deutsche Bahn has applied for use of the line and in 2009 regulations were relaxed to allow its trains to use the Channel Tunnel. Other proposals are yet to be formalised.

In 2009, Eurotunnel (the owners of the Channel Tunnel) announced that it was prepared to start relaxing the fire safety regulations, in order to permit other operators, such as Deutsche Bahn, to transport passengers via the Tunnel using other forms of rolling stock via LGV Nord. Under the deregulation of European railway service, high speed lines were opened up to open access on 1 January 2010; the Inter Governmental Commission on the Channel Tunnel (IGC) announced that it was considering relaxing the safety requirements concerning train splitting. LCR suggested that high speed rail services between London and Cologne could commence before the 2012 Olympics. As of March 2010 Eurotunnel, High Speed 1, DB and other interested train operators formed a working group to discuss changes to the safety rules, including allowing DB's trains through the tunnel on a Frankfurt to London service. Deutsche Bahn hope to run an ICE 3 train through the Channel Tunnel on 19 October 2010, in preparation for possible future operations. The current Velaro ICE3 sets do not meet the fire safety requirements necessary for the carriage of passengers through the Channel Tunnel, but the Siemens Velaro D sets on order include the necessary additional fire proofing.

In September 2008, Air France KLM indicated a desire to take advantage of the change in the law and apply to run rail services. However, in October 2009, Air France withdrew its interest. This led to Veolia looking for new partners, with the announcement that it would begin working on new proposals in cooperation with Trenitalia to run services from Paris to Strasbourg, London and Brussels.

Spanish railway operator RENFE has also shown an interest in running AVE services from Spain to London via Paris, Lyon, Barcelona and Madrid via its AVE network which is connected to France via the Barcelona to Figueras and Perpignan to Figueras lines.