TGV frequency along Rhone.

[theageofthetra]

I am sitting this evening on the deck of the ship I am working on sailing south between Viviers & Avignon. The Rhone on this section is crossed and paralleled for some distance by the Paris-Marseille LGV. I am really surprised at the frequency of the TGV Duplex at this time of night. They seem to come in blocks of 2-3 then stop for 10 mins then another few. Is this a peak time? The top of our wheelhouse is only a couple of feet below the deck of the LGV river bridges and its quite amazing having one roar overhead at full speed just a few feet above your head!

 

[Ze Random One]

As I don't know of any resource like realtimetrains for the French network, the best resource I can get hold of is the Arrival/Departure indicators from the DB journey planner.

As far as I can tell, there are at least 13 TGV services expected to pass Avignon in the 2000-2200 (CET) period.
It seems that a lot of these services are flighted (i.e., one a few minutes after another), this is in part because it seems SNCF use Lyon Part Dieu as a splitting/joining station when a TGV is portion worked (For example, a TGV from Nice, and another from Toulouse, one having stopped at Avignon, and the other at Valence instead, arrive within minutes of each other at Lyon Part Dieu, are coupled, and proceed towards Dijon at 2204)
Remember also:
around 1900-2100 will correspond to the 1600-1830 ex-Paris services, and seems to be a convenient time for a number of non-Paris services to run, principally it seems to be the time most of the southbound cross-country services pass, including those from Brussels, Frankfurt and Rennes heading to the Côte d'Azur and the Spanish border.