Réseau ferré de France (RFF, french: French Rail Network) was a French company which owned and maintained the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

national railway network from 1997 to 2014. The company was formed with the rail assets of

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

in 1997. Afterwards, the trains were operated by the

, the national railway company, but due to European Union Directive 91/440, the

Government of France The Government of France ( French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who ...

was required to separate train operations from the railway infrastructure. On 1 January 2015, RFF became ''

SNCF Réseau The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

'', the operational assets of SNCF became ''

SNCF Mobilités The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

'', and both groups were placed under the control of

. Unlike other infrastructure managers, RFF did not provide maintenance services or rail traffic control operations, which were both done by

SNCF Infra The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail tra ...

on RFF's behalf. Furthermore, SNCF retained the ownership of stations. In September 2013, RFF had over €32 billion of debt.

Overview

The RFF was constituted with SNCF's infrastructure assets, and debts were transferred from SNCF's books to RFF's. RFF was mainly a financial structure focusing on debt refinancing, and contracted the majority of its infrastructure management to SNCF. Signalling on RFF infrastructure was implemented and maintained by SNCF. The creation of RFF was criticised because of the financial options chosen: RFF was subsidised by the French government in order to pay the interest on debt previously borne by the SNCF, which allowed SNCF to have a positive operating income and thus enabled competition to be opened.

Control centres

In July 2013, RFF began a project to build 16 regional control centres, replacing over a thousand local signalling centres. The first regional control centre was built in

Pagny-sur-Moselle Pagny-sur-Moselle (, literally ''Pagny on Moselle'') is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France. See also * Communes of the Meurthe-et-Moselle department * Parc naturel régional de Lorraine Lorraine Regional Na ...

References

External links

RFF official website

RFF network map

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Railway infrastructure managers {{France-rail-transport-stub