Intermediate and interminable: a railway regeneration drama in two acts

The term ‘regeneration’ as applied to railways suggests smart network modernisation. Through the case study of a Paris suburban line, it seems that the more the infrastructure is repaired, the less efficiently it seems to work. As a result, the line appears neither broken nor working, and this intermediate state is likely to persist for an indeterminate and maybe interminable period. The combination of two theoretical frameworks helps explore this enigma: the sociological concept of the trial develops the disparate processes of evaluation that underlie the notion of regeneration, and a model of resilience planning comprising two phases - disruption audit and recovery implementation - gives a chronological canvas. Both instruments allow us to consider the question - is infrastructure regeneration doomed to fail? - in terms of two acts in an infrastructural drama. The first act depicts the causes of the line’s breakdown; the second analyses the repair works. However, the vicissitudes of recovery destabilise the entire infrastructural regime and constantly reopen uncertainties about the diagnosis and solutions.