Any first hand experience with Trenitalia on this rail segment? Their fare is somewhat lower and they do not have the same frequency of service as SNCF, but I wonder about reliability and on time performance as well as general impressions. I have never used Trenitalia and am unsure of their customer experience hence I am leaning towards SNCF at this time, but it does beg the question before I commit.

Where are you seeing those schedules & fares?
Trenitalia may not show all of the TGV trains, but I highly doubt it would show a completely different schedule.

Trenitalia operates trains within Italy, but they probably also cross sell tickets for TGV that are operated by SNCF. For trains that cross borders some trains may be operated by either company, but the schedules would show up on both sites. But you're talking about TGV, which are all run by SNCF, not a cross border train.

I would trust the SNCF schedule and booking process, and only us Trenitalia for trains originating in Italy.
My personal preference is to book with the operator of the equipment I am riding on...

J62 Thanks for these comments.

Just to clarify/rectify, Trenitalia is now actually operating its own trains on SNCF rail lines thereby competing directly with SNCF trains. They also recently introduced Paris-Marseille service, and moreover the Spanish RENFE is also competing with SNCF on lines sucha s Marseille-Barcelona. Apparently this new direct competition has had a beneficial effect on fares for the passengers since SNCF no longer has a monopoly on those service segments. A planned extension of service from Paris to London (Eurotunnel) is also in the works, competing with the Eurostar trains.

Incidentally, one books the Trenitalia directly on their website which now has a French version.

Makes sense that you can buy it on trenitalia. I do believe that those Trenitalia Lyon to Paris option on Ferricosa train are cross border trains, originating in Italy, not just back and forth Paris - Lyon, but I could be wrong.

It's nice the trenitalia has French, German, and English language pages, for the convenience of us non-italian speakers.

For such a short trip, it does't realy make much difference. Trenitalia claims to pamper people more since it is the underdog on this route.

You are right J62, from what I understand the Trenitalia are Paris-Milan with a stop in Lyon.

Kerouac I appreciate your chiming in, if there was any glaring caveat you would certainly know about it. Merci.

I have a Trenitalia ticket booked for Lyon to Paris GDL for September, I can report back then. I'm not sure how on time performance would be impacted since they are using existing rail lines that SNCF uses every day, but more frequently. If they delay, every train behind them is likely delayed.

I booked via Trainline and the prices and schedules (for the SNCF trains) were the same as on the SNCF Connect app. The timing of the Trenitalia ticket's arrival was the reason I went that direction.

apersuader65 I appreciate this info and would be very interested indeed in your eventual experience as you suggest you might report back after your trip.

In the end, I purchased SNCF tickets on their Connect app since the timing of their trains was a better fit for us. Though the price was higher than on Trenitalia, it was still very reasonable (for an early October travel date) and we purchased their first class product for a mere 4 euros more (being this far ahead in the calendar). I must also add that having used SNCF in the past helped with my comfort level moving forward.

Bon voyage!