An eastward expansion of France’s high-speed rail network is about to bring German trains to Paris for the first time since the Second World War.

Within a month, a fleet of new TGV (train à grande vitesse) locomotives will cut hours off the journey time from Paris to the eastern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and beyond to German cities such as Stuttgart and Frankfurt and to Luxembourg and Zurich.

The TGV Est project, costing €5.5 billion (£3.7 billion), will increase pressure on Europe’s airlines, reducing the journey between Paris and Strasbourg from four hours to two hours, twenty minutes. In addition, it will halve journey times from Paris to a clutch of French cities, such as Reims, Nancy and Metz.

The new TGV Est trains, built by Alstom, are faster than their sisters in the main TGV fleet. Average speeds will rise from 185 miles per hour to 200mph (320km/h). SNCF, the French state railway operator, believes that they will help it to secure a greater share of traffic to eastern France and southern Germany, tempting passengers away from airlines.

Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, will provide services to Paris at the same speed, using trains built by Siemens.

Strasbourg’s station is being refurbished, including the fireplaces of a waiting room built in 1883 for the use of Kaiser.

Hurtling across the countryside east of Paris on a trial run to Strasbourg, Guillaume Pepy, the SNCF chief executive, extolled the potential of the TGV to bring Europe closer together: “Western Europe is shrinking.” SNCF predicts that passenger volumes on its eastern corridor will rise from seven million to 11 million by 2009. According to Alain Le Guellec, director of the TGV Est project, a million passengers will be international travellers, from Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland – about a fifth of the increased volume.

Half the increase in traffic will come from new passengers and half from airline passengers switching in favour of the convenience of railways and cheaper fares. SNCF is offering daily promotional fares of €15 for any French destination on TGV Est this summer. A normal advance booking second-class fare to Strasbourg will cost €25.

Mr Le Guellec said that TGV Est would run up a deficit of €100 million in its first year and that the €5.5 billion total investment may take 15 years to recover.

However, Mr Pepy has an unusually long investment outlook. He said: “When you invest in a high-speed train, it is for 100 years.” Moreover, much of the economic benefit does not accrue to the TGV operator but to the region it serves, in rising property values, inward investment and tourism.

He pointed to cities such as Cherbourg or Le Havre that lack a TGV service and suffer journey times to Paris almost equal to those from Marseilles. “Those cities are desperate. People would rather invest in a TGV area,” Mr Pepy said. Up to 20 per cent of the project, therefore, is coming from local taxes in Alsace and Lorraine.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive