Not trains, but vans are set to revive France’s abandoned railway tracks

Rusty rails will soon meet high-tech innovation: abandoned tracks in the Auvergne region of France will see a surprising newcomer next month: electric vans that work like an Uber: you order it on your phone, and it brings you from A to B, even running autonomously on the rails. Could this be a solution to revitalise the thousands of kilometres of abandoned tracks in Europe?

For anyone in the rail sector, abandoned tracks are a sad sight to see. But while we can dream of the lines getting a full modernisation so they can serve their purpose again – to bring people from A to B – it’s no secret that this would be an enormous investment.

In France, a different approach is taken that promises to be much cheaper: adapting transporter vans so they can run both on and off the tracks. French startup Ferromobile will start pilot testing on February 17 with innovative rail-road vehicles on the Courpière-Vertolaye line in France’s Auvergne region, where Syndicat Mixte Ferroviaire du Livradois Forez will host a demonstration.

Ferromobile is not the only one developing this idea, SNCF is also working on it, with its FLEXY rail-road vehicle, which ran trials in Brittany in 2023. Ferromobile’s president is Arnaud Montebourg, a former Minister for Industrial Renewal and Digital Technology in the French government. This time serving a similar purpose: rail renewal by digital technology.

How a van runs on rails

Ferromobile’s hybrid vehicle looks like a standard electric van, it is built on the chassis of a Stellantis E-Traveller (known on the market as the Peugeot e-Traveller or Opel Zafira-e). But its retractable steel wheels transform it into a miniature ‘train’ when it reaches a railway hub.

The bus has regular rubber tires but is equipped with a retractable track wheel system: on roads, it drives like a normal van, steered by a human. On tracks, it lowers its steel wheels, switches to autonomous mode, and operates like a driverless metro—complying with EU railway standards (EN50126, EN50128 and EN50129) and using a virtual signalling system. Since the vans don’t share tracks with regular trains, safety is guaranteed. The vehicles are equipped with the most advanced radar and camera-based safety technologies.

On-demand rail mobility

Unlike fixed-schedule trains, Ferromobile will operate like Uber—on-demand, with the option to be 24/7 and in platoons (multiple vans in a row) to increase capacity. The steel-on-steel contact reduces energy consumption, while the hybrid design solves the “last-mile” problem: it can pick up passengers in villages, drive to a rail hub, switch to autonomous track mode, and deliver them directly to urban centers—no transfers needed.

Ferromobile is part of the Flexmove consortium, which includes SYSTRA, Entropy, and Université Gustave Eiffel, and is supported by ADEME under France’s 2030 innovation plan. The project has already drawn media praise for its “frugal yet high-impact” approach, as Automobile Magazine noted. “A Peugeot Traveller adapted to run on rails, with reduced operating costs and intelligent reuse of existing infrastructure,” the magazine stated, calling it a “textbook example of smart innovation.”

A lifeline for France’s forgotten railways

France alone has 5,700 kilometers of abandoned tracks, according to Ferromobile. They’re generally too costly to restore for heavy trains, but that’s a different story for lightweight, electric vans. Ferromobile’s low-weight, low-cost solution could revive these routes without massive infrastructure spending.

The Courpière-Vertolaye test is just the beginning. If successful, commercial operations could launch by 2028, bringing carbon-free mobility to 10 million French residents living near abandoned lines, automotive publication Autobahn reported. Mayor of the town French rural town Olliergues, Arnaud Provenchère, said “it will really allow us to find a solution for the mobility problems of our territory,” he said in an interview with Ouest-France.

A model for Europe’s rusty rails?

Across Europe, tens of thousands of kilometers of abandoned railway lines lie overgrown with weeds — too expensive to renovate, too expensive and inconvenient to remove. Between 1995 and 2019, Europe lost 15,650 kilometres of active railway lines. About 13,700 km of mostly regional railway lines and more than 2,500 railway stations have been temporarily or permanently closed to passenger trains. This disproportionately affected rural communities, with reduced access to rail and other public transport as a result.

According to a Greenpeace-commissioned study, more than half of these closed railway lines could be reopened ‘relatively easily’. But even if money were set apart for that, what about the rest?

With tests starting next month, Ferromobile’s hybrid vans could set an example for Europe’s ghost railways. Maybe sometimes, the future of rail does not involve trains at all?