The SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français; "National Corporation of French Railways"), is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network. Its functions include operation of rail services for passengers and freight, and maintenance and signalling of rail infrastructure owned by Réseau Ferré de France (RFF).

SNCF employs more than 180,000 people in 120 countries across the globe. The rail network consists of about 32,000 km (20,000 mi) of route, of which 1,800 km (1,100 mi) are high-speed lines and 14,500 km (9,000 mi) electrified. About 14,000 trains are operated daily. The chairman of SNCF is Guillaume Pépy. The company's headquarters is in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, in the Rue du Commandant Mouchotte.^[2]

As of 2010^[update] SNCF was ranked 22^nd in France and 214^th globally on the Fortune Global 500 list.^[3]

Business scope[link]

A 2nd-generation TGV Réseau train at Marseilles St-Charles station

An SNCF Transport Express Régional train

A "broken nose"^{[weasel words]} style of SNCF electric locomotive (21000-class) designed by Paul Arzens

High-speed rail[link]

SNCF operates almost all of France's railway system, including the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, meaning "High-Speed Train"), In the 1970s, SNCF began the TGV high-speed train program with the intention of creating the world's fastest railway network. It came to fruition in 1981, when the first TGV service, from Paris to Lyon, was inaugurated. Today, SNCF operates 1,850 km (about 1,150 miles) of designated high-speed track that accommodate more than 800 high-speed trains per day. SNCF’s TGV trains carry more than 100 million passengers a year. TGV lines and TGV technology are now spread across several European countries in addition to South Korea.

In the past SNCF also owned the European tracks, but this has changed due to EU Directive 91/440. Since 1997 the tracks and other rail infrastructure have belonged to a separate government establishment, Réseau Ferré de France; this change was intended to open the market to independent train operating companies, although few have yet appeared.

SNCF's TGV has set many world speed records, the most recent on April 3, 2007, when a new version of the TGV dubbed the V150 with larger wheels than the usual TGV, was able to cover more ground with each rotation and had a stronger 25,000 hp (18,600 kW) engine, broke the world speed record for conventional rail trains, reaching 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph).

SNCF has a remarkable safety record. After nearly 30-years in operation, SNCF’s TGV system has never experienced a fatal accident.

SNCF operations[link]

Since the 1990s, SNCF has been selling railway carriages to regional governments, with the creation of the Train Express Régional brand. SNCF also maintains a broad scope of international business that includes work on freight lines, inter-city lines and commute lines. SNCF experts provide logistics, design, construction, operations and maintenance services. SNCF operates the international ticketing agency, Rail Europe.

SNCF has employees in 120 countries offering extensive overseas and cross border consulting. Those projects include:

• Israel: Assistance and Training. SNCF International provides assistance to Israel Railways in every area of rail operations including projects to upgrade the network's general safety regulations. Other assistance and training programs involve Infrastructure and the Traction Division.

• Taiwan: Operations Training. SNCF supervised the prime contractor responsible for construction of the Taiwan Railways Administration’s main high-speed rail line. It also trained rail traffic controllers, drivers, and crew members. On behalf of the Government of Taiwan, SNCF managed the high-speed rail Command Control Centre.

• United Kingdom: Maintenance. In 2007-2008, SNCF-International consultants audited the maintenance practices applied to the track, signalling and overhead electric power line on British high-speed rail lines connecting London to the Channel Tunnel. In addition, it conducted an audit of the maintainer’s performance from the service quality and cost control standpoint, made recommendations for improvements, and proposed a three-year Business Plan.

• South Korea: HSR Electrification Design. SNCF advised Korean Railroad on the electrification of track between Daegu and Busan and on linking existing conventional track to the new high-speed line. SNCF also assisted in selecting and inspecting high-speed rolling stock and trained 400 senior manager, engineers, and executives in a broad range of skills, including signalling, catenaries, track, rolling stock maintenance, HSR operation, safety management, marketing, and passenger information systems. Until the end of 2009, SNCF have assisted Korea in maintaining its high-speed.

• Spain: Signalling System. SNCF partnered with the Spanish railroad infrastructure manager in the study, supply, installation, and maintenance of the standard EU rail signaling system along the Madrid-Lleida high-speed rail line. On behalf of the Spanish Government, SNCF designed and led maintenance operations on this line over a two-year period.

• France: Lead Infrastructure and Rolling Stock Maintainer – The scope of SNCF’s maintenance duties is staggering: it maintains 32,000 km (20,000 mi) of track, 26,500 main sets of points and crossings, 2,300 signal boxes, 80,000 track circuits, over 1 million relays, etc. On the rolling stock side, SNCF maintains 3,900 locomotives and 500 high-speed trains. Each of SNCF’s TGV trains travels more than 39,000 km (24,000 mi) a month – enough to circle the globe. Each year SNCF’s Human Resources Department provides over 1.2 million hours of training to its over 25,000 employees.

History[link]

SNCF was formed in 1938 with the nationalisation of France's five main railways (Chemin de Fer in English means railway, literally, 'path of iron'). These were the:

• Chemin de Fer de l'Est (Eastern Railway)
• Chemin de Fer de l'État (State Railway) (formed in 1909 from the merger of the Chemin de Fer de l'État and the Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest)
• Chemin de Fer du Nord (Northern Railway)
• Chemin de Fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM) (Paris, Lyon and Mediterranean Railway)
• Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi (Paris, Orléans, and Central Railway) (PO-Midi, formed in 1934 from the merger of the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and the Chemin de Fer du Midi)

The French state originally took 51% ownership of SNCF and invested large amounts of public subsidies into the system. Today, SNCF is 100% owned by the French government.

World War II involvement[link]

The terms of the Armistice provided that all French railroads be turned over to German occupying forces.^[4] Between 1941 and 1944, SNCF transported nearly 77,000 Jews and other Holocaust victims from France to Nazi death camps.^[5] SNCF billed Nazi-occupied France for third-class tickets,^[6] although passengers were transported in cattle cars.^[7] After the liberation of France, SNCF continued to seek payment for transporting Holocaust victims to Germany.^[6]

France's rail infrastructure and rolling stocks were a target for the French Resistance aimed at disrupting and fighting the German occupying forces.^[8] This allowed SNCF employees to perform many acts of resistance,^[9] including the formation of the Résistance-Fer movement in 1943. Nearly 1,700 SNCF railway workers were killed or deported for resisting Nazi orders.^[10][11] 150 Résistance-Fer agents were shot for their acts of resistance, 500 of them were deported. Half of those deported died in concentration camps.^[12]

SNCF commissioned French academics to write a history of SNCF activities during World War II in 1996, however no publicly available record of the document exists.^[13] An executive summary of the report is available in French and English.^{[14][dead link][15]}

Reactions to World War II involvement[link]

In 2001, SNCF was sued by the father of MEP Alain Lipietz because of the railroad’s role in transporting members of his family to the Drancy internment camp during World War II. In 2006 the local administrative court in Toulouse found SNCF guilty of aiding in deportations.^[16][17] This ruling was overturned in 2007 when the Bordeaux appeal court ruled that the administrative courts did not have jurisdiction to rule on the legal liability of SNCF.^[18] On further appeal, the court's lack of jurisdiction was upheld by France's Conseil d'Etat.^[19]

SNCF publicly expressed regret for its role in transporting Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II for the first time in November 2010 in order to enhance its bid on Florida railway contracts.^[7][20] This change of language is linked to the potentially lucrative market for high-speed rail contracts across the United States of America, since SNCF has been criticized in the US for failing to apologize for its involvement.^[7][20][21] For example in 2010, a California legislator introduced a bill requiring all companies bidding on California rail projects to disclose involvement in transporting Holocaust victims.^[22] Maryland passed a law requiring SNCF to fully disclose its role in the transporting of Jews to Nazi camps when Keolis bid on a MARC train contract in 2011.^[5] On 25 January 2011 the president of SNCF, Guillaume Pépy, expressed his company's first formal public apology directly to Holocaust victims.^[11] In addition, SNCF donated to the French Shoah Memory Foundation a 3.5 hectare field near a train station from which most deportations to Nazi camps departed.^[10]

Some have criticized the legal pressure and campaign against SNCF as uninformed and unfair.^[23][13] The labor union CGT stated that its workers “paid a heavy price during the war" for their resistance activities.^[23] Arno Klarsfeld, the son of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, called the American criticisms of SNCF historically inaccurate.^[23]

Design[link]

The industrial designer Paul Arzens styled many of SNCF's locomotives from the 1940s until the 1970s. A particularly distinctive type is the "broken nose" style of electric and diesel locomotives.

Modern day[link]

Part of the record-breaking V150 unit being sailed in triumph down the Seine for display at the foot of the Eiffel Tower

SNCF is a recognized leader in eco-mobility with a commitment to become the world’s first operator to offer carbon neutral travel at no extra cost to travellers. SNCF has cut emissions on its cross-channel Paris To London route by 31% in two years by using more electricity from non-fossil fuel sources. SNCF’s 39 manufacturing facilities are in the process of “going green” and 9 sites are already ISO 14000 certified. SNCF developed an interactive website to help travellers calculate the environmental impact of their travel choices.

Codeshare with airlines[link]

SNCF codeshares with Air Austral, Air France, Air Tahiti Nui, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Middle East Airlines, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and SriLankan Airlines and in exchange, allows passengers on those flights to book rail service between Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy (near Paris) and Aix-en-Provence, Angers, Avignon, Bordeaux, Le Mans, Lille, Lyon Part-Dieu, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nîmes, Poiters, Rennes, Tours, and Valence with their airline. The IATA designator used by airlines in connection with these journeys is 2C.^{[citation needed]}

Continental Airlines discontinued its codeshare with SNCF as of August 15, 2010.^[24]

Company structure and subsidiaries[link]

Divisions[link]

As of 2010 SNCF is divided into five groups:^[25]

• SNCF Infra is the infrastructure division of SNCF, and carries out track and other infrastructure maintenance, design and construction. Subsidiaries in the group include Systra, Inexia and SNCF International.
• SNCF Proximités is responsible for urban, commuter and regional passenger transport. Constituent parts include TER, Transilien and Intercités (formerly Corail intercités) as well as subsidiaries including Keolis
• SNCF Voyages is responsible for long distance and high-speed passenger services. Constituent parts include TGV, Lunéa and Téoz as well as subsidiaries including Eurostar, Thalys, Lyria and iDTGV
• SNCF Geodis is the rail freight and general freight logistics section of SNCF, including Fret SNCF and other European rail freight companies (since 2010 collected under the brand Captrain^[26]), as well as rail-freight stock management companies including France Wagons and Ermewa.
• Gares & Connections was created in April 2009 for station management, land management, and land development. The division manages 3000 stations in France, as well as other activities through Groupe AREP (Civil engineering), Groupe A2C (real estate management) and Parvis.

Subsidiaries[link]

SNCF has full or partial shares in a large number of companies, the majority of which are rail or transport related. These include:^[27]

• Geodis (100%)
• ERMEWA (100%)
• France Wagons (100%)
• SGW : Société de Gérance de Wagons (67.5%)
• CTC : Compagnie des Transports Céréaliers (69.36%)
• SEGI (98.96%)
• Naviland Cargo (94.37 %) previously CNC, Compagnie Nationale de Conteneurs.

General freight transport:

• C-Modalohr Express (51%)
• Novatrans (38.25%)
• Districhrono (100%)
• Ecorail (99.9%)
• Froidcombi (48.93%)
• Rouch Intermodal (98.96%)
• Sefergie (98.96%)

• Keolis (44.5%)
  • Govia (15.84%)
• EFFIA (99.99%)

Passenger transport

• Thalys International (70%)
• Eurostar International (55%)^[28]
• Lyria (74 %)
• Elipsos International (50%)
• Artésia (50%)
• SeaFrance (100 %)
• Rhealys SA (30%)
• iDTGV (100%)
• Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (20%)^[29]

Tickets

• Voyages-sncf.com (50.1%), the on-line travel agency of the SNCF
• Rail Europe (50%)
• GLe-trade

Consulting

• AREP (99.99%)
• SNCF International (100%)
• Inexia
• Systra (35.87 %): engineering for public transport

Housing

• ICF^{[disambiguation needed ]} (100%): rental housing (social and private housing)

Head office[link]

SNCF has its head office in the Montparnasse area of the 14th arrondissement of Paris,^[30] located near the Gare Montparnasse.^[31]

SNCF used to have its head office in the Saint-Lazare area of the 9th arrondissement.^[31][32] In 1996 the president of SNCF, Louis Gallois, announced that SNCF would move its headquarters to a new location during the middle of 1997.^[33]

See also[link]

	Paris portal
	Companies portal
	Trains portal

• History of rail transport in France
• List of French companies
• List of SNCF locomotive and multiple-unit classes
• Transport express régional
• Corail (train)
• Transport in France
• List of SNCF stations
• Autorité de Régulation des Activités Ferroviaires

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: SNCF

• Official website Requires Adobe Flash Player (Mobile) (French) (German)
  • in English Requires Adobe Flash Player
  • UK site
• Map
• History of SNCF (French)
• Collection of Google Earth locations of SNCF stations (Requires Google Earth software) from Google Earth
• SNCF Society - enthusiasts' site (English) (French)