Who remembers? There was a time when taking the train was not very popular. The DS, the first motorways and the Air Inter Caravelle were much more attractive than the old railway. Concerned by this decline, whipped up by this worrying disaffection, the SNCF had the idea of ​​offering "rapids" to conform to this emerging taste for speed. The construction of Europe had given birth to the TEE (Trans Europ Express), which linked the main cities of the continent in a few hours. The launch of the Mistral is part of this general movement of accelerated mobility, encouraged by the magic wand of the electricity fairy, which gradually erases steam traction, a large consumer of coal. The great period of the SNCF's "mythical rapids" with the Mistral, is also a technological evolution, air conditioning, bar-drugstore, boutique, secretariat, telephone and even hairdressing salon. The most fashionable "rapid" of the Trente Glorieuses was revolutionary. - Archivist Clive Lamming took out his slide rule. On the Paris-Lyon line, no less than 600,000 tons of coal were burned each year, more than 1,000 tons per kilometer… The work to move from one era to another was enormous. On the Paris-Lyon section alone, “it was necessary to modify 173 bridges, 21 footbridges, 21 tunnels, modify the PTT and SNCF telephone installations, build 51 electrical substations,” summarizes Clive Lamming. The Mistral, then numbered 1 and 2, was created in 1950, it is a day train, it sets off from the Gare de Lyon, track A, the least congested with points. It follows in the wake of the Train bleu on the “Imperial Line” (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean), the great economic and tourist axis traced by the Second Empire. From May 14, 1950, Paris-Lyon was swallowed up in 4 hours 15 minutes, with hair-raising peaks at 140 km/h. It then connected Paris to Marseille. It was in October 1952 that it was extended to Nice and on May 30, 1965 it became a Trans Europ Express (TEE). In May 1971, it was renumbered 10 and 11. When the Paris-Lyon TGV entered service on September 27, 1981, this train was converted into a 1st and 2nd class train numbered 180 and 181. It disappeared for good on May 23, 1982 when the TGV reached Marseille. The train The MISTRAL was one of the legendary trains of the SNCF. Even though it no longer runs today, it continues to be used as a reception area for public and professional events. Today, and since June 10, 2001, no fewer than twenty TGVs leave every day, in each direction, to provide the Paris-Marseille connection in a little over three hours approximately. Each "Duplex" train carries approximately 1,000 passengers. The offer is therefore approximately 20,000 places with a train approximately every hour. The "car" is always in its traffic jams, even on the highway, and the journey is always about ten hours. By plane, it is not only politically incorrect, but it is absurd with the time lost in airports and the time lost on the road to get there. So, compared to 1954, the SNCF of 2022 has more than tripled the speed of a large number of its connections, and has multiplied by more than 10 the offer and the number of places. photo: https://trainspirit.fr/ Web: https://trainconsultant.com