Route
The LGV Nord begins at Arnouville-lès-Gonesse, 16.6 km 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.
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, 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 going to Lille-Flandres. All TGVs and some Eurostars stop at Lille-Europe. Non-stop Eurostars pass through a tunnel under the city of Lille at 200 km/h.
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 Picardie 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.
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