50,000 train tickets at €5 have been put on sale today (May 21) by the SNCF to celebrate the second birthday of its ‘Ouigo Train Classique’ trains, the low-cost - but slower version - of TGVs.
The €5 tickets are on sale today, May 21 and May 22, for travel between May 22 and July 5. Tickets normally start at around €10.
You can book tickets via the website or the Ouigo app.
Ouigo trains connect 20 destinations, mostly in the west of France but also in the east, such as Paris, Rennes, Lyon, Dijon and Angers. They are slower than TGVs, reaching around 160 km/h rather than around 300 km/h.
A Paris-Rennes trip takes over four hours as opposed to an hour and a half on the TGV.
More affordable travel with Ouigo
Around 110 million passengers have used Ouigo trains in the last ten years according to the SNCF. Two more routes are being added in 2024, linking Bordeaux and Brussels with Paris.
First launched in 2013, Ouigo trains generally mirror their high-speed TGV counterparts, running across the length of the country – usually out of Paris – but provide a stripped-back service, and occasionally call at stations in a city’s suburbs instead of their centre.
The Ouigo Train Classique was launched in 2022. For its first anniversary, the SNCF sold 10,000 tickets for 1€ and sold out within an hour.
They use classic railway lines rather than the high-speed TGV ones and their prices have remained stable, compared to the inflation-hit prices of TGVs and INOUI trains.
