This sounds like the reason...
I can imagine that 100 year old bridges have a habit of dropping bricks on trains that send massive pressure waves every 10 minutes all day long...
I can imagine that 100 year old bridges have a habit of dropping bricks on trains that send massive pressure waves every 10 minutes all day long...
However the manufacturer might be expecting a significant business through the alps, given the base tunnels Switzerland has been digging.
That would make high-speed tunnel entry a larger concern than it’s historically been for the french market (most of the tall mountains are on the edges of france so high speed lines don’t have a surfeit of tunnels, probably unlike japan which is rather mountainous).