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The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national
state-owned State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...
railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffic along with Monaco, including the
TGV The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...
, on France's high-speed rail network. Its functions include operation of railway services for passengers and freight (through its subsidiaries SNCF Voyageurs and Rail Logistics Europe), as well as maintenance and signalling of rail infrastructure ( SNCF Réseau). The railway network consists of about of route, of which are high-speed lines and electrified. About 14,000 trains are operated daily. In 2010 the SNCF was ranked 22nd in France and 214th globally on the Fortune Global 500 list. It is the main business of the SNCF Group, which in 2020 had €30 billion of sales in 120 countries. The SNCF Group employs more than 275,000 employees in France and around the world. Since July 2013, the SNCF Group headquarters are located in a Parisian suburb at 2 Place aux Étoiles in Saint-Denis. The president of SNCF Group has been Jean-Pierre Farandou since 2019.


Business scope


High-speed rail

SNCF operates almost all of France's railway traffic, including the
TGV The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...
(''Train à Grande Vitesse'', meaning "high-speed train"). In the 1970s, the 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 with the completion of the first high-speed line LGV Sud-Est ("Ligne à Grande Vitesse Sud-Est", meaning "southeast high-speed line"), where the first TGV service, from Paris to Lyon, was inaugurated. In 2017, the national rail network owned by SNCF Réseau had 28,710 km (17,839 mi) of lines, 58% of which were electrified and 2,640 high-speed lines. Every day, the SNCF runs 15,000 commercial trains and transports more than 5 million passengers and more than 250,000 tonnes of goods. TGV lines and TGV technology are now spread across several European countries. The SNCF's TGV has set many world speed records, the most recent on 3 April 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 engine, and broke the world speed record for conventional railway trains, reaching . The SNCF has a remarkable safety record. After nearly 30 years in operation, SNCF's TGV system has only experienced one fatal accident, which occurred during pre-opening testing and not in regular operation.


United Kingdom

In 2011 SNCF in partnership with Keolis, unsuccessfully bid for the
InterCity West Coast InterCity West Coast (ICWC) was a 1997–2019 railway franchise in the United Kingdom for passenger trains on the West Coast Main Line (and branches thereof), between London Euston, the West Midlands, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchester, Carlis ...
franchise. In April 2017 SNCF took a 30% shareholding in a joint venture with
Stagecoach Group Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom. History Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...
and Virgin Group to bid for the West Coast Partnership that will operate services on the West Coast Main Line from May 2020 and the High Speed 2 line from 2026. In April 2019 Stagecoach were banned from bidding for any franchises including the West Coast Partnership which has meant that Virgin and SNCF have now had to withdraw from the shortlist.


SNCF operations

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 International business refers to the trade of goods, services, technology, capital and/or knowledge across national borders and at a global or transnational scale. It involves cross-border transactions of goods and services between two or more ...
that includes work on freight lines, inter-city lines and commuter lines. SNCF experts provide logistics, design, construction, operations and maintenance services. SNCF operates the international ticketing agency
Oui.sncf SNCF Connect, formerly OUI.sncf until January 25, 2022, is a subsidiary of SNCF selling passes and point-to-point tickets for rail travel around Europe. It has commercial links to major European rail operators including SNCF, Eurostar, Deutsch ...
, formerly Voyages-sncf.com and 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 programmes 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 railway 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 The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...
. 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 Railroads on the electrification of tracks between Daegu and Busan and on linking existing conventional tracks 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 assisted Korea in maintaining its high-speed. * Spain: Signalling System. SNCF partnered with ADIF (Spanish railway infrastructure provider) in the study, supply, installation, and maintenance of the standard EU railway signaling system along the Madrid-Lleida high-speed 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 SNCF maintains of track, 26,500 main sets of points and crossings, 2,300 signal boxes, 80,000 track circuits, over 1 million relays, etc. It also maintains 3,900 locomotives and 500 high-speed trains. Each of SNCF's TGV trains travels more than 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. *Apart from these network of countries, It has the potential to expand its network to Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain etc.


History

SNCF was formed in 1938 with the
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
of France's main railway companies (''Chemin de fer'', literally, 'way of iron', means railway). These were the: * Chemins de fer de l'Est (Est, ''Eastern Railways'') * Chemins de fer de l'État (État, ''State Railways''; merged in 1908 with the Chemins de fer de l'Ouest) * Chemins de fer du Nord (Nord, ''Northern Railways)'' *
Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée The Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée ("Railway Company of Paris to Lyon and the Mediterranean"), also known as the Chemins de fer Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée or simply PLM, established in 1857, was one of Fran ...
(PLM, ''Paris, Lyon and Mediterranean Railways)'' * Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi (''Paris, Orléans, and Southern Railways''; PO-Midi, formed in 1934 from the merger of the Chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans and the Chemins de fer du Midi) *
Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine The Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine or AL (English: Alsace and Lorraine Railways) was a rail transport administration created on 19 June 1919. On 1 January 1938, the Alsace and Lorraine Railways were nationalised, as w ...
(AL, ''Alsace-Lorraine Railways'') * Syndicats du Chemin de fer de Grande Ceinture et de Petite Ceinture (''Great and Little Belt Railways'') in Paris and its suburbs. The French state originally took 51% ownership of SNCF and invested large amounts of public subsidies into the system. Today, SNCF is wholly owned by the French state.


World War II

Following the 1940 Armistice and until August 1944, SNCF was requisitioned for the transport of German armed forces and armaments. The invading German troops were responsible for the destruction of nearly 350 French railway bridges and tunnels. According to differing estimates, SNCF surrendered between 125,000 and 213,000 wagons and 1,000-2,000 locomotives. France's railway infrastructure and rolling stocks were a target for the French Resistance aimed at disrupting and fighting the German occupying forces. This allowed SNCF employees to perform many acts of resistance, including the formation of the
Résistance-Fer ''Résistance-Fer'' ( French; Railway-Resistance, or "Iron-Resistance") was a French Resistance group against the German occupation of France during the Second World War. This specific movement was essentially composed of French railway workers f ...
movement in 1943. Nearly 1,700 SNCF railway workers were killed or deported for resisting Nazi orders. 150 Résistance-Fer agents were shot for their acts of resistance, 500 of them were deported. Half of those deported died in concentration camps. German occupying forces in France also requisitioned SNCF to transport nearly 77,000 Jews and other Holocaust victims to Nazi extermination camps. These deportations have been the subject of historical controversy and lawsuits (such as the Lipietz case) in France as well as in the United States (where subsidiary Keolis is a transportation contractor) to the present day. In 1992 SNCF commissioned French academics to write a history of SNCF activities during World War II. The resultant report was published in 1996. More recently, some sources have claimed that SNCF billed Nazi-occupied France for third-class tickets for Holocaust victims transported to extermination camps, although passengers were transported in
cattle car A cattle wagon or a livestock wagon is a type of railway vehicle designed to carry livestock. Within the classification system of the International Union of Railways they fall under Class H - special covered wagons - which, in turn are part of the ...
s. Other sources have reported that after the liberation of France SNCF continued to seek payment for transporting Holocaust victims to Germany. However, historian
Michael Marrus Michael Robert Marrus (1941–2022) was a Canadian historian of the Holocaust, modern European and Jewish history and international humanitarian law. He is the author of eight books on the Holocaust and related subjects. Overview Marrus (1941–2 ...
has written that claims that SNCF billed for third-class tickets and continued to seek payment after the war ended were made as part of a legal case brought against SNCF, and did not match with historians' understanding of what happened. Marrus argues that SNCF had no margin of maneuver during the German occupation and that the actions of SNCF employees were not ideologically motivated. According to Serge Klarsfeld, president of the organization
Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France The Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France (') is a French association of descendants of Jews deported from or displaced in France during the Nazi German occupation of France (19401944), during the Holocaust. Serge Klarsfeldan academic ...
, SNCF was forced by German and Vichy authorities to cooperate in providing transport for French Jews to the border and did not make any profit from this transport. In December 2014, SNCF agreed to pay up to $60 million worth of compensation to Holocaust survivors in the United States. It corresponds to approximately $100,000 per survivor.


Modern era

In the early 2000s, SNCF sought to get a contract from the state of California for a bullet train project between Los Angeles and San Francisco. SNCF recommended that the train take the most direct route between the two locations to reduce the complexity and cost of the project, but the SNCF's recommendations were cast aside by California politicians who wanted to divert the train through various communities, raising the cost and complexity of the project, as well as the expected travel time. SNCF pulled out of the project in 2011 and went to Morocco to help the country construct a bullet train service. By 2018, Morocco's bullet train started service while the California bullet train project was not close to being operational in 2022, with some saying that the project would never be completed. In May 2014, the company had discovered that 2,000 new trains they ordered at a cost of 15 billion euros are too wide for many of France's regional platforms. Construction work has started to reconfigure them. On 1 January 2015, Réseau ferré de France (RFF) merged with
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 ...
and the Direction de la circulation ferroviaire (DCF) and became '' SNCF Réseau'', 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 SNCF.


Design

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.


Codeshare with airlines

SNCF codeshares with Air Austral, Air France, Air Tahiti Nui, American Airlines,
Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have sc ...
, Middle East Airlines,
Etihad Airways Etihad Airways ( ar, شَرِكَة ٱلْاِتِّحَاد لِلطَّيْرَان, sharikat al-ittiḥād li-ṭ-ṭayarān) is one of two flag carriers of the United Arab Emirates (the other being Emirates). Its head office is in Khalifa ...
, Qatar Airways, and
SriLankan Airlines SriLankan Airlines (formerly known as Air Lanka) is the flag carrier of Sri Lanka and a member airline of the Oneworld airline alliance. It is currently the largest airline in Sri Lanka by number of aircraft and destinations and was launched i ...
. In exchange, SNCF allows passengers on these flights to book railway services between Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy (near Paris) and
Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
, Angers,
Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
, Bordeaux,
Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Man ...
, Lille, Lyon Part-Dieu, Marseille,
Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
,
Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
,
Nîmes Nîmes ( , ; oc, Nimes ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the prefecture of the Gard department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Located between the Mediterranean Sea and Cévennes, the commune of Nîmes has an estimated population of 148,5 ...
,
Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
,
Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...
,
Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
, Tours, and
Valence Valence or valency may refer to: Science * Valence (chemistry), a measure of an element's combining power with other atoms * Degree (graph theory), also called the valency of a vertex in graph theory * Valency (linguistics), aspect of verbs rel ...
with their airline. The
IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...
designator used by airlines in connection with these journeys is 2C.
Continental Airlines Continental Airlines, simply known as Continental, was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continental started o ...
discontinued its codeshare with SNCF on 15 August 2010.


Company structure


Headquarters

Until 1999, the SNCF's historic headquarters was located at 88
Rue Saint-Lazare The Rue Saint-Lazare is a street in the 8th and 9th arrondissements of Paris, France. It starts at 9 Rue Bourdaloue and 1 Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and ends at Place Gabriel-Péri and Rue de Rome. History This street already existed in 1700 unde ...
in the 9th arrondissement. In 1996 the chairman of SNCF, Louis Gallois, announced that SNCF would move its headquarters to a new location during the middle of 1997. From 1999 to 2013, SNCF's headquarters were located in the Montparnasse neighborhood of the
14th arrondissement of Paris The 14th arrondissement of Paris ( ), officially named ''arrondissement de l'Observatoire'' (; meaning "arrondissement of the Observatory", after the Paris Observatory), is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. It is situa ...
,Legal information
" SNCF. Retrieved on 24 October 2013.
located near the Gare Montparnasse.Le siège haut perché de la SNCF à Montparnasse


. ''
Les Echos Les Echos may refer to: * ''Les Echos'' (France), a French-language financial newspaper published in France * ''Les Echos'' (Mali), a French-language newspaper published in Bamako, Mali See also * Echoes (disambiguation) Echoes may refer to: * ...
''. 20 May 1999. Page 54. Retrieved on 1 May 2010. "Pari tenu : réceptionné le 19 mars par Bouygues Immobilier et livré à son occupant dix jours plus tard, le nouveau siège de la SNCF est sorti de la gangue du grand ensemble de la gare Montparnasse, dans le 14e arrondissement de Paris, en quinze mois d'un chantier intense qui a mobilisé sur place jusqu'à 650 personnes. Quelque 800 postes de travail sont concernés sur les 2.500 qui gravitaient hier autour du siège historique de Saint-Lazare (9e arrondissement), consacrant la partition entre une direction générale resserrée et des services centraux pléthoriques."
Since July 2013, the SNCF headquarters are located in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis at 2, place aux Étoiles, 93200 Saint Denis. The move was motivated by cutting operating costs by 10 million euros per year.


Divisions

Since 1 January 2020 SNCF is a state-owned group consisting of a parent company (SNCF) with several independently operated subsidiaries: * SNCF Réseau (English: ''SNCF Network'') - State-owned railway infrastructure manager ; ** SNCF Gares & Connexions (English: ''SNCF Stations & Connections'') - SNCF Réseau subsidiary responsible for the maintenance and renovation of the 3,000 stations on the French rail network ; * SNCF Voyageurs (English: ''SNCF Travelers'') - State-owned enterprise that operates trains in France and Europe, including the flagship
TGV inOui TGV inOui is the brand name of premium TGV train services operated by SNCF since 27 May 2017 on certain high speed rail services. SNCF is in the process of replacing 'classic' TGV services with the premium inOui and low-cost Ouigo brands in pre ...
service, along with the low cost
Ouigo Ouigo () is a French low-cost service range of both conventional and high-speed trains. The literal translation of ''Ouigo'' from French to English is "yes go;" the name is also a play on words with the English homonym "we go." It is composed o ...
TGV service, Intercités traditional long-distance services, and
TER Ter or TER may refer to: Places * River Ter, in Essex, England * Ter (river), in Catalonia * Ter (department), a region in France * Torre (river), (Slovene: ''Ter''), a river in Italy * Ter, Ljubno, a settlement in the Municipality of Ljubno ob S ...
and Transilien regional services ; * Rail Logistics Europe ; ** Fret SNCF (English: ''Freight SNCF'') - rail freight services ; ** Captrain - European rail freight network ; ** VIIA, Rolling highway ; ** Naviland Cargo ; ** Forwardis, freight forwarder ; * Geodis (98.4% owned by SNCF) - Private company that runs freight transportation logistics ; * Keolis (70% owned by SNCF) - Private public transport operator that runs services in cities across the world including bus, metro, light rail, rental bikes, carparks, cable cars and airport services.


Subsidiaries

SNCF has full or partial shares in a large number of companies, the majority of which are rail or transport related. These include: * 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 Transports, Compagnie Nouvelle 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%) :* EFFIA (99.99%) ''Passenger transport '' :*
Thalys International Thalys (French: ) is a French-Belgian high-speed train operator originally built around the LGV Nord high-speed line between Paris and Brussels. This track is shared with Eurostar trains that go from Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam to London via Li ...
(70%) :* (55%) :* Lyria (74%) :* Elipsos International (50%) :* Rhealys SA (30%) :* Keolis (70%) :* Govia (24.5%) :*
Ouigo Ouigo () is a French low-cost service range of both conventional and high-speed trains. The literal translation of ''Ouigo'' from French to English is "yes go;" the name is also a play on words with the English homonym "we go." It is composed o ...
(100%) :* Ouigo España (100%) ''Tickets'' :*
SNCF Connect SNCF Connect, formerly OUI.sncf until January 25, 2022, is a subsidiary of SNCF selling passes and point-to-point tickets for rail travel around Europe. It has commercial links to major European rail operators including SNCF, Eurostar, Deutsche ...
''(formerly oui.sncf)'' (50.1%), the on-line travel agency of SNCF :*
Rail Europe, Inc. Rail Europe, SAS is global technology company that specializes in providing train tickets and rail passes for travel in Europe. The company has a long history dating back to the 1930s and was built on the idea to make train travel in Europe mor ...
(50%) Bought from
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
. :* GLe-trade ''Consulting'' :* AREP (99.99%) :* SNCF International (100%) :* Inexia :* Systra (35.87%): engineering for public transport ''Housing'' :* ICF Habitat Novedis (100%): rental housing (social and private housing)


Company image

According to a TNS SOFRES survey published in 2010, 66% of French people have a good image of SNCF. At the end of 2019, this proportion was measured at 50% by the Posternak-Ifop barometer on the image of companies. In 2020, Eight Advisory and IFOP unveil their ranking of the "most admired French companies": SNCF is in 23rd position. Safety on trains is also often a priority. To do this, around 2,800 railway workers form the Railway Security, the general supervision of SNCF, of which 50% of the workforce is assigned to the Île-de-France region. Furthermore, the experts of the BCG, Boston Consulting Group , use to compare the rail systems in 25 European countries. They rank France in tied 4th position (with Germany, Austria and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
), behind
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, Denmark and Finland. The criteria are : the utilization rate, quality of service and safety.


Visual and sound identity


Logotype

SNCF's current visual logo was created in 2005 by the Carré Noir agency, a subsidiary of the Publicis communication group. It was slightly reworked in 2011: rounded corners, disappearance of shadows inside the letters as well as behind, and a clearer separation between them.


Sound Identity

The SNCF
sound logo A sound trademark or sound logo or audio logo is a trademark where sound is used to perform the trademark function of uniquely identifying the commercial origin of products or services. In recent times, sounds have been increasingly used as trade ...
- the four notes C - G - A flat - E flat -, in a sung version, was created in 2005 by Michaël Boumendil.
David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in 1967, shortly before the departure of founding member Syd Barrett. P ...
, guitarist of the group
Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
, used the jingle as the inspiration for the title track of his 2015 album '' Rattle That Lock''. Simone Hérault has been the voice of SNCF since 1981


Culture


Cinema

Since the Auguste and Louis Lumière's first film, SNCF has been the company that hosts the most film shoots in France, between 50 and 60 shoots per year, which represents around two thirds of French productions. A selection of iconic films where SNCF is at the heart of the matter include: *
Mr. Bean's Holiday ''Mr. Bean's Holiday'' is a 2007 comedy film directed by Steve Bendelack and written by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll, from a story penned by Simon McBurney. Based on the British sitcom series ''Mr. Bean'' created by Rowan Atkinson and Richar ...
* Mission: Impossible * The Tourist *
Hugo Cabret ''The Invention of Hugo Cabret'' is a historical fiction book written and illustrated by Brian Selznick and published by Scholastic. It takes place in France as a young boy finds his purpose. The hardcover edition was released on January 30, 2 ...

(
Hugo Hugo or HUGO may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Hugo'' (film), a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese * Hugo Award, a science fiction and fantasy award named after Hugo Gernsback * Hugo (franchise), a children's media franchise based on a ...
)


TV Show

*
Killing Eve ''Killing Eve'' is a British spy thriller television series, produced in the United Kingdom by Sid Gentle Films for BBC America and BBC Three. The series follows Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a British intelligence investigator tasked with capturi ...


See also

*
Autorité de Régulation des Activités Ferroviaires The Autorité de Régulation des Activités Ferroviaires is a French government agency which regulates rail transport. ARAF was officially founded in December 2010, but there was considerable informal work before that date. The headquarters is in ...
* Corail (train) *
Dirigisme Dirigisme or dirigism () is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive (policies) role contrary to a merely regulatory interventionist role over a market economy. As an economic doctrine, dirigisme is the opposite of ''lai ...
*
History of rail transport in France :''This article is part of the History of rail transport series'' The history of rail transport in France dates from the first French railway in 1823 to present-day enterprises such as the AGV. Beginnings France was a sluggard in building rail ...
*
List of French companies A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
* List of SNCF locomotive and multiple-unit classes *
List of SNCF stations SNCF stations by region The following link to SNCF stations, grouped by region (SNCF managed RER stations with no other SNCF service are not included on the Île-de-France page – see List of stations of the Paris RER for a full listing of RER st ...
* Transport express régional * Transport in France


References


External links


Website of SNCF
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sncf Eurostar Railteam Government-owned companies of France Railway companies of France Rail transport in France French companies established in 1938 Railway companies established in 1938 French brands