Railways in France Tourist and minor railways in France are covered in detail in a separate group of pages Mainland France The first public railway in France was officially
opened on 1st October, 1828, a year after it had
been brought into use and just three years after the
opening of the pioneering Stockton & Darlington
Railway in the United Kingdom. The French line ran
from Saint-Étienne to Andrézieux, a distance of some 18km. It was built to the standard (1435mm)
gauge that had by then become established in the
United Kingdom. The first railway in the French capital ran from the
Place de l'Europe (near the present Saint-Lazare
station) to Le Pecq, a few km short of its eventual
destination at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In most countries, the "rule of the road" for trains is
the same as for road traffic. For example, in
England, where cars drive on the left of the road,
trains run on the left hand of a pair of rail tracks,
while in Germany, where cars drive on the right,
trains use the right hand track of the pair. France is an exception to this rule. Cars drive on the right,
but trains run on the left. This is because the early
railways were mainly built using British expertise
and standard equipment "out of the box". No
major operational problems are caused by this
discrepancy, but it did give rise to an oddity: between the end of Franco-Prussian war of 1871
and the end of the First World War, the provinces of
Alsace and Lorraine formed part of the German
Empire, and during this time their lines were
converted to right-hand running. When the
provinces were returned to France in 1919, right hand running was left in place. To cope with the
change from left hand to right hand running at
places where there was no necessity to stop for a
border crossing, a number of flyovers or sauts de
mouton (literally, "sheep jumps") were installed
whose sole purpose was to take one running line over the top of another in the opposite direction. The Paris Métro also runs on the right; this is
believed to be because the first lines, opened at the
beginning of the 20th century, were closely based
on electric tram technology and operation. Paris
trams of course had to run on the right when
operating in the streets. Although the early railways were for the most part
developed by private companies, there was close
State regulation which meant that there was little of
the unnecessary duplication of lines that arose in
other countries, notably the United Kingdom. By the
1870s, the bulk of the lines had been merged into just five companies: Est, Nord, PLM, PO and Ouest:
organised around groups of lines radiated from the
capital. A sixth group was owned and operated by
the State. The Ouest company eventually got into
serious financial difficulties and was taken over by
the State in 1909. This situation continued until 1938, when all the remaining companies merged
with the State system to form SNCF. Under EU regulations, train operation and
infrastructure costs must be separately
accountable. France, like many other European
countries, has chosen to implement this by
spinning off a separate infrastructure company
(RFF). Local services of SNCF have also been decentralized, on a regional basis. However, all the
companies involved are State owned, and there
appears little movement towards the introduction
of private operators to the passenger sector. A
number of independent freight operators have
appeared in reecent years but SNCF retains the majority of the freight traffic. Apart from the main line railways, there were also a
many minor railways and tramways, built to
standard or metre gauge. Some of these lines
survive as tourist operations. Like England and unlike many other European
countries, most French cities lost their urban
tramways in the latter part of the 20th Century, the
sole exception being a single line in Marseille.
However, many cities now have new tram and even
metro systems, and others are projected or in the course of being built.
