In France, the Réseau Ferré National (RFN) is made up of railroad lines and infrastructure belonging to the French state, and assigned to SNCF Réseau.

The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) was responsible for the network from January 1, 1983, when it was set up as an "établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial" (EPIC), until February 13, 1997, on the basis of the network conceded by the State, which had built it up since 1938 from the networks of the former major railway companies. From February 13, 1997, to December 31, 2014, the national rail network belonged to the EPIC Réseau ferré de France (RFF), with maintenance and operation delegated to SNCF. On January 1, 2015, following the demise of RFF, the network became the property of SNCF Réseau, which manages and operates it directly. In 2020, it will become the property of the French State, while remaining entrusted to SNCF Réseau.

By 2018, with over 28,000 km of track in operation and more than 2,800 stops and stations served, France has the second largest network in Europe (behind Germany), as well as the leading network of high-speed lines. Most of the network's traffic (81%) is passenger traffic (1.35 billion people carried, with an average occupancy rate of 45%). However, trains face stiff competition from trucks, roads, and even airplanes. France has developed its high-speed network but has abandoned many small lines and stations, making access to certain services more difficult in rural areas.(fr) L'accès aux services publics dans les territoires ruraux archive, Cour des comptes (Investigation commissioned by the Comité d'évaluation et de contrôle des politiques publiques de l'Assemblée nationale), March 2019, 154 pages. These short lines are considered unprofitable, due to their high cost for low ridership, as well as their environmental impact when not electrified.(fr) "Les transports express régionaux à l'heure de l'ouverture à la concurrence" archive, on Cour des comptes, October 2019 (accessed February 1st, 2020).

History

Under old companies

The very first French railroad line, and also the first in continental Europe, was the Saint-Étienne–Andrézieux railway, granted by order of King Louis XVIII to Louis-Antoine Beaunier in 1823 and opened on June 30, 1827. The 18 km line was designed to transport coal from the mines in the Loire coalfield to the river. It opened to passengers on March 1, 1832.

The law on the establishment of major railway lines (also known as the "Railway Charter"), passed on June 11, 1842, defined the French railroad system, creating a model of public-private partnership. The State became the owner of the land on which the lines were to be constructed and financed the construction of the infrastructure (engineering structures and buildings). Use of the line was then granted to private companies, who built the superstructure (tracks and facilities), invested in rolling stock, and enjoyed a monopoly of operation on their lines.

The rail network rapidly expanded throughout the country. The network was built from Paris in the form of a star network, known as the Legrand star.

The Freycinet plan, adopted in 1879, envisaged linking each sub-prefecture to the rail network.

The network reached 3,000 km by 1852, 17,000 km by 1870, and 26,000 km by 1882.(fr) Petite histoire du chemin de fer en France archive.

Alsace-Lorraine was annexed to the German Empire in 1871. As a result, its rail network was operated by the Kaiserliche Generaldirektion der Eisenbahnen in Elsaß-Lothringen (Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine - EL). When Alsace-Lorraine returned to France after World War I, this network was operated by the Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine, created in 1919 and managed by the State, since the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est, which had operated it before 1871, did not wish to take it over.

By 1914, the French general-interest rail network had reached 39,400 km, rising to 42,000 km at its peak in the late 1920s. Added to this was the voie ferrée d'intérêt local, with a maximum extension in 1928 of 20,921 km of lines, operated directly by the general councils or by various private companies on behalf of the départements. The total represents some 63,000 km of track in mainland France. This local network declined rapidly from the 1930s onwards, with 70 km remaining in 2010.(fr) "Dossier: 1930-2010, 80 ans de fermetures de lignes", Historail, April 2011, pp. 18-20.

In 1937, just before the creation of the SNCF, the French rail network was operated by the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord (Nord), the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est (Est), the communauté d'intérêt financière, commerciale et technique des Compagnies des chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans and du Midi et du Canal latéral à la Garonne (known as PO-Midi), the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM), plus the Syndicats du chemin de fer de Grande Ceinture et de Petite Ceinture and the two national administrations, chemins de fer d'Alsace-Lorraine (AL) and chemins de fer de l'État (État).

Under the SNCF

The Société nationale des chemins de fer français was created by agreement on August 31, 1937,(fr) Centre de documentation du ministère de l'équipement (Textes de base sur la SNCF archive): convention du 31 août 1937 archive transférant, au 1er janvier 1938, l'exploitation des lignes des anciens réseaux à la SNCF (cf. article 1er de la convention). See brief presentation of the agreement archive by Antoine Albitreccia in Annales de Géographie, year 1938, volume 47, number 266, pp. 206-207. between the French government and the various private railway companies of the day: Nord, Est, PO, Midi, PLM, the Grande Ceinture and Petite Ceinture railway unions, and the national administrations of the Alsace and Lorraine railways and the state railways. On January 1, 1938,(fr) Art. 1 para. 4 of the agreement of August 31st, 1937. the operation of the lines of these former companies, unions, and administrations was transferred to the new SNCF, while the former railway companies remained owners of their own private domain.The private domain comprises all property and rights acquired by the railroad companies outside the concessions granted to them - cf. art. 1, para. 6 of the agreement of August 31, 1937.

At the time of its creation, the SNCF was a semi-public company, operating a network of 42,500 km of track (8% of which was electrified) and organized around five regions: East, North, West, South-East and South-West. These regions correspond to the networks of the former companies, with the Alsace-Lorraine network integrated into the East region. The SNCF also operates the lines conceded by the Société royale grand-ducale des chemins de fer Guillaume-Luxembourg (GL), which were previously operated by the Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine.

The creation of the SNCF was accompanied by the strengthening of the rail-road coordination policy initiated in 1934, which led to a major program of line closures. By the end of 1939, 9,546 km were closed to passenger service, most of them in 1938 and 1939. The vast majority, however, continued to be used for freight services, pending the generally later closure to all traffic. Passenger and freight closures continued from the 1950s onwards, reaching a total of over 17,000 km of lines closed to all traffic in 2011.(fr) "Dossier: les fermetures de lignes au trafic voyageurs en France", Historail, April 2011, p. 18-143.

After the second German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the Deutsche Reichsbahn managed the Alsace-Moselle and Guillaume-Luxembourg rail networks during World War II, from July 1, 1940, until the Liberation (from September 1944).

The sixth region, Méditerranée, was created in 1947.

France's first high-speed line, the LGV Sud-Est, was inaugurated on September 22, 1981.

On January 1, 1983, SNCF became an Établissement Public à Caractère Industriel et Commercial (EPIC).

The creation of RFF

Réseau ferré de France (RFF) was created on February 13, 1997, as a split-off from SNCF.

The aim was to separate two distinct activities: railway infrastructure management on the one hand, and the organization of transport services on the other. It was a response to European directives aimed at creating a supranational railway area. It had two consequences: by taking over infrastructure-related debts, RFF reduced SNCF's debt, and by managing only the infrastructure, it allowed the network to be opened up to other operators without any risk of conflict of interest.

However, while RFF became the owner of the network, Infra, the network maintenance and operations department, remained with SNCF. This allowed RFF to call on third-party companies when they are less expensive.

Ownership of the "public railway domain" was transferred for the most part to Réseau ferré de France when it was created in 1997: 30,000 kilometers of lines in service and 108,000 hectares spread over more than 10,000 communes. The SNCF, for its part, retained ownership of the "industrial tracks" (equipment maintenance workshops, depots, goods halls, etc.) as well as commercial and administrative buildings (notably passenger station buildings), covering a total of 7,000 hectares. Certain areas, proportionally very limited but quantitatively not insignificant, remained disputed for a long time before the French government imposed external arbitration between 2005 and 2006.

Between February 13, 1997, and December 31, 2014, Réseau ferré de France owned and managed the national rail network, with Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) as delegated manager (as defined by Decree 2002–1359), which in practice consists of all rail infrastructure: tracks, platforms, signal boxes; the passenger buildings in stations, as well as several hundred service tracks for parking rolling stock, are still owned by SNCF.

Reuniting RFF and SNCF A new reform of the rail system was adopted by the Senate and National Assembly in 2014. It provides for the reunification of SNCF and RFF into a single entity on January 1, 2015. A new organization was set to be put in place. The SNCF will be structured around three EPICs: the head company SNCF, the infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau, and SNCF Mobilités, responsible for train operations.(fr) Projet de loi portant réforme ferroviaire on the vie-publique.fr. website.

RFF ceased to exist on December 31, 2014, and the new SNCF organization took effect on January 1, 2015.

The SNCF (through SNCF Réseau and SNCF Mobilités) then became the owner of the national rail network and all railway stations and infrastructure, as well as the owner, manager, and operator of the network.

The 2015 law on the new territorial organization of the Republic (NOTRe) gives regions and inter-municipalities the opportunity to become owners of capillary freight lines on the national rail network. Capillary freight lines represent around 3,000 km of track (or 10% of the RFN).(fr) "Premiers résultats du plan de sauvegarde des lignes capillaires de fret ferroviaire", article L'Antenne of August 29th, 2016.

Two new high-speed lines went into service on July 2, 2017: the LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire and the LGV Sud Europe Atlantique, the latter financed by a public-private partnership. At the inauguration of the LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, President Emmanuel Macron declared: "the promise I want us to keep together for the years to come is this: (...) not to relaunch major new projects, but to commit to financing infrastructure renewal".(fr) "VIDEO. TGV: Ces lignes à grande vitesse qui pourraient ne jamais voir le jour", in 20minutes.fr, article of July 2nd, 2017 (accessed August 9th, 2017).