TGV 01 retires

[whole diary]

[stuving]

Here's another retirement party - for the first production TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse), at least nominally.
From railcolornews:

[FR] SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways): A colourful farewell for Patrick a.k.a. TGV 01
Written by Railcolor Headquarters on 07.02.2020 in Creativity

An explosion of colors to say farewell to the first TGV Sud-Est high-speed train. Set TGV 01, named ‘Patrick’, retires after 41 years of service. For this occasion, both power cars got back their original orange livery. Intermediate cars got back SNCF older blue-silver paint scheme, so TGV 01 now sports all three liveries it has had during its active career. Thanks to Christophe Masse we can show you the EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) during its farewell tour on 06.02.2020:

TGV01, named ‘Patrick’ driving its farewell TGV Sud-Est train 06.02.2020 Photo: Christophe Masse

We noted that only one of the power cars got back large old-skool SNCF logos, it is not visible on the picture above, but you can see it here. As the cars do not have the original front hatches anymore, the grey part had to be mimicked.

More pictures on French sites, such as https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/lyon_69123/patrick-premier-tgv-prend-retraite-sera-passage-gare-lyon-perrache_31727431.html

Why "Patrick"?  It was the name of the son of its first regular driver, at Strasbourg depot. And the final public goodbye will be March 7-8 at gare de Lyon Perrache. Covid-19 permitting, obviously.