An incident, which occurred on the night of January 19 to 20, 2024 in
very cold weather, caused talk of the Paris-Clermont railway line: while
this journey is supposed to last three hours, the breakdown of a
locomotive left 700 travelers without water , electricity or heating for
eleven hours. A "nightmare" which, widely relayed by social networks and
the media, led the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu to
summon the CEO of SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou to ask him for a "plan of
concrete and immediate measures"... within fifteen days. He can always
dream.
"Is the SNCF Paris - Clermont-Ferrand line really the worst in France?»,
questioned 20 minutes on January 24. This line frequented by nearly 2
million travelers was already one, in 2011, of the 12 "sick, saturated
or problem lines" listed by the SNCF itself; in 2023, it counted 121
delays of more than one hour, 33 of more than two hours and 38 train
cancellations.
In addition, the latest spectacular incident on this route did not beat
its record, established in 2019, where a train took fourteen hours to
complete it. On the other hand, what has changed - at the national
level, and no longer just locally - is that delays have lost their
exceptional character in the eyes of everyone. Thus Frédéric Aguilera,
vice-president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in charge of
transport, admits: "Today the equipment is so rotten that it is a mess.»
And the general director of Intercités adds: "The equipment is so
exhausted that every day we bet that it will hold up[1].» And the SNCF
spokesperson admits: "There are so many under-investments that have not
been made for years that we pay the price at some point.»
According to the collective "Clermont-Paris train users", the repeated
material breakdowns on this section are due to "the obsolescence of the
railway infrastructure" and "the failure of the equipment", the trains
being over forty years old and locomotives over thirty years old. But we
can draw the same assessment from other lines since, again according to
the SNCF spokesperson, the Paris-Clermont connection in fact only
occupies third place among French "galley lines". In first position,
there is Bordeaux-Marseille, with 26.6% of trains arriving late at their
destination last year; then we find Lyon-Nantes, with 21% delays. And,
after Paris-Clermont, he cites Paris-Limoges-Toulouse (see the following
article).
But what is behind this decline in "SNCF quality" - and in particular on
the Intercités lines? Above all, the progressive reorganization by the
SNCF of its "main line" services around the TGV alone. Before the
appearance of this "high-speed train", the Intercités lines formed the
backbone of the railway network, and they were an important regional
planning tool by connecting the populations of metropolises and those of
medium-sized towns[2]. Their disappearance in favor of more expensive
routes which erase the stations by no longer stopping the trains
conversely constantly reinforces territorial segregation.
In addition, the SNCF has organized its own competition, now offering
car to home services, carpooling, regular coaches, etc. By diluting the
railway activity in a more global "mobility" offer, it has aligned its
policy with the "Road rather than rail" consensus in vogue in ruling
circles.
On February 15, 2018, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, former CEO of Air France,
presented Edouard Philippe, then Prime Minister, with a report on the
future of rail transport[3]. He recommended, among other things: the
refocusing of rail transport on TGV services between the main French
metropolises; the modernization of "everyday trains in urban and
peri-urban areas"; examining the maintenance of small lines with regard
to their cost; a new status for the SNCF - the previous one dating
from... 2014; the gradual disappearance of "railway workers" status,
with plans for voluntary departure for two years.
The recommendations in this report were not surprising: they were
inspired by "recipes" previously applied to other public companies -
from France Telecom to EDF via La Poste. The government immediately took
them on board, and announced the opening of a period of consultation
with the unions with a view to their implementation. SNCF became a
public limited company; the railway lines, and even the management of
the network, have been opened to competition; the end of the "railway
workers" status has been planned, as well as the elimination of services
deemed unprofitable[4]...
From the Thatcher years to the Blair years, the United Kingdom set an
example in terms of privatization and liberalization of public services.
Water, rail, telecommunications, gas and electricity, post office, urban
transport, prisons... everything has been there, apart from the national
public health service, the NHS.
From the 1990s, the former public service British Rail was divided into
pieces which were sold; the railway network and the management of the
lines were dissociated, and the management of the lines itself was
divided into several regional concessions; the train fleet has been
entrusted to separate companies, which rent them at high prices to the
line operators, providing their shareholders with millions in guaranteed
profits from year to year...
But the privatization of the British rail network quickly degenerated:
problems of coordination and loss of expertise led to numerous incidents
- until the Hatfield train disaster which, in 2000, cost the lives of
four people. The government found itself forced to renationalize the
network in 2002, and it never attempted to re-privatize it.
The repeated bankruptcies and scandals did not stop there, because they
also concerned the management of the lines themselves. Indeed, although
train prices in the United Kingdom are among the highest in Europe
(according to the British Department of Transport, they have increased
by more than 23% since privatization in real terms, therefore taking
into account the 'inflation), the quality of the rail service is as bad
as that of the service provided in France by the SNCF: delays and
cancellations of trains, crowded and dilapidated wagons... Also, in a
2017 survey carried out for the "We Own It" campaign» ("It Belongs to
Us"), which pushes for the renationalisation or remunicipalisation of
public services in the United Kingdom, 76% of British respondents said
they were in favor of a return to public control of the railway system
as a whole.
In France, the leaders did not opt for an all-out privatization of the
former public monopolies, but for their transformation. Air France,
France Télécom, EDF-GDF, La Poste, SNCF, etc., have become commercial
companies placed under more or less diluted control of the State, and
which have profited both from their rent-seeking situation in France and
government protection to expand abroad, including acquiring services
privatized by other countries.
The law for a new railway pact passed in June 2018 thus enabled the
"financial consolidation" of the SNCF Group: the State took over its
debt to the tune of 35 billion euros "in order to increase its
investment capacity in modernization and renovation of the railway
network. This law organized the opening to progressive and
differentiated competition, the end of status recruitment[5]and the
negotiation of a "new social contract" (sic!).
Since 2020, SNCF has been made up of a holding company and five limited
companies: SNCF Réseau, SNCF Gares & Connexions, Rail Logistics Europe
and SNCF Voyageurs. The latter manages all of SNCF's passenger transport
activities, including Ouigo (see box). SNCF forms, with the companies
Keolis and Geodis, the SNCF Group. The State is the sole shareholder of
SNCF, whose capital is non-transferable; and since 2010 it has also been
the organizing authority for the so-called "territorial balance trains"
(TET) that are the Intercités.
Coming back to the Paris-Clermont line, the State has launched a
modernization program concerning it, with work on the network financed
to the tune of 1 billion euros and with the arrival of new trains,
called "Oxygène" , delivery and commissioning of which are planned for
2026. However, there are already reports of major delays in the
production of these trains and in the operation of this line...
Finally, as a large part of the investment for the "global regeneration
of the network" must be fueled by the profits of SNCF Voyageurs, and as
the SNCF must increase its contribution in the next four years, it finds
itself confronted with contradictory injunctions. . For 2024 alone, the
State is requiring an investment of around 1.7 billion euros, or 70% of
its profits in 2022[6]. The SNCF will therefore have to run more trains
with fewer resources; maintain Intercity rates; ensure (unlike its
competitors) a larger part of the investment in the network while
assuming the dysfunctions which are the responsibility of the State. At
the same time, it has still not specified how the famous "100 billion
euros" plan for rail by 2040 that former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne
announced on February 24, 2023 will be financed. .
On January 14, 2024, LFI MP Clémentine Autain foolishly attributed, on
her Twitter account, the delay of a train she was on to the
"privatization" of the SNCF. Immediately mocked for her blunder, she
corrected the situation by declaring that, of course, the SNCF was not
privatized, but that "opening up to competition and liberalization
lead[ed]to a deterioration in traffic", and that the SNCF was "forced to
prepare for profitability because it was opening up to competition".
It is my opinion that our travels will hardly improve...
Vanina
Notes:
1. "Clermont-Paris train: "We cannot cut Auvergne off from Paris for so
long", waiting for concrete measures", FR3 Auvergne, January 24, 2024.
2. "When the French state sabotages the train", by Vincent Doumayrou, Le
Monde Diplomatique, June 2016.
3. "SNCF reform: the aftermath of the Spinetta report", Vie publique
website, February 26, 2018.
4. "Dismantling of the SNCF: 30 years late, will Macron repeat the same
mistakes as the British?», by Olivier Petitjean, on Basta!, February 20,
2018.
5. The special retirement plan was abandoned on January 1, 2021: railway
workers hired after this date no longer benefit from it. SNCF management
explains that the occasional daily cancellation of trains is due to a
lack of drivers, because many of them have retired.
6. Initially, this share was set at 60%.
"Progress is only valuable if it is shared by everyone" is not a
marketing lie. Indeed, observing as we do that progress is not shared by
all, and therefore that it is worthless, the SNCF has reinvented with
its "low cost offer" the 3rd class which had been abolished in France in
1956. 2013, she treated us to her famous Ouigo...
But the Ouigos are different from the 3rd class of yesteryear: these
trains almost all have the particularity of arriving at or departing
from a station that is difficult to access. For example, we take you to
Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy, forty-five minutes from Paris when public
transport works well or there are no traffic jams - very improbable
scenarios -, this which costs you 5 euros per person. Or you get off at
Saint-Exupéry station, and it takes you about an hour and around 10
euros per person to get to Lyon by public transport. There are also some
Ouigo Paris-Lyons from Paris to Lyon; but if they are a little below the
TGV for their price, their speed is fully Ouigo, it: count 5 hours...
In the 3rd class cars of yesteryear, the transport conditions were very
uncomfortable, but at least we left from the same place as "the others"
and we took the same time as them to reach our destination.
https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4099
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
very cold weather, caused talk of the Paris-Clermont railway line: while
this journey is supposed to last three hours, the breakdown of a
locomotive left 700 travelers without water , electricity or heating for
eleven hours. A "nightmare" which, widely relayed by social networks and
the media, led the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu to
summon the CEO of SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou to ask him for a "plan of
concrete and immediate measures"... within fifteen days. He can always
dream.
"Is the SNCF Paris - Clermont-Ferrand line really the worst in France?»,
questioned 20 minutes on January 24. This line frequented by nearly 2
million travelers was already one, in 2011, of the 12 "sick, saturated
or problem lines" listed by the SNCF itself; in 2023, it counted 121
delays of more than one hour, 33 of more than two hours and 38 train
cancellations.
In addition, the latest spectacular incident on this route did not beat
its record, established in 2019, where a train took fourteen hours to
complete it. On the other hand, what has changed - at the national
level, and no longer just locally - is that delays have lost their
exceptional character in the eyes of everyone. Thus Frédéric Aguilera,
vice-president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in charge of
transport, admits: "Today the equipment is so rotten that it is a mess.»
And the general director of Intercités adds: "The equipment is so
exhausted that every day we bet that it will hold up[1].» And the SNCF
spokesperson admits: "There are so many under-investments that have not
been made for years that we pay the price at some point.»
According to the collective "Clermont-Paris train users", the repeated
material breakdowns on this section are due to "the obsolescence of the
railway infrastructure" and "the failure of the equipment", the trains
being over forty years old and locomotives over thirty years old. But we
can draw the same assessment from other lines since, again according to
the SNCF spokesperson, the Paris-Clermont connection in fact only
occupies third place among French "galley lines". In first position,
there is Bordeaux-Marseille, with 26.6% of trains arriving late at their
destination last year; then we find Lyon-Nantes, with 21% delays. And,
after Paris-Clermont, he cites Paris-Limoges-Toulouse (see the following
article).
But what is behind this decline in "SNCF quality" - and in particular on
the Intercités lines? Above all, the progressive reorganization by the
SNCF of its "main line" services around the TGV alone. Before the
appearance of this "high-speed train", the Intercités lines formed the
backbone of the railway network, and they were an important regional
planning tool by connecting the populations of metropolises and those of
medium-sized towns[2]. Their disappearance in favor of more expensive
routes which erase the stations by no longer stopping the trains
conversely constantly reinforces territorial segregation.
In addition, the SNCF has organized its own competition, now offering
car to home services, carpooling, regular coaches, etc. By diluting the
railway activity in a more global "mobility" offer, it has aligned its
policy with the "Road rather than rail" consensus in vogue in ruling
circles.
On February 15, 2018, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, former CEO of Air France,
presented Edouard Philippe, then Prime Minister, with a report on the
future of rail transport[3]. He recommended, among other things: the
refocusing of rail transport on TGV services between the main French
metropolises; the modernization of "everyday trains in urban and
peri-urban areas"; examining the maintenance of small lines with regard
to their cost; a new status for the SNCF - the previous one dating
from... 2014; the gradual disappearance of "railway workers" status,
with plans for voluntary departure for two years.
The recommendations in this report were not surprising: they were
inspired by "recipes" previously applied to other public companies -
from France Telecom to EDF via La Poste. The government immediately took
them on board, and announced the opening of a period of consultation
with the unions with a view to their implementation. SNCF became a
public limited company; the railway lines, and even the management of
the network, have been opened to competition; the end of the "railway
workers" status has been planned, as well as the elimination of services
deemed unprofitable[4]...
From the Thatcher years to the Blair years, the United Kingdom set an
example in terms of privatization and liberalization of public services.
Water, rail, telecommunications, gas and electricity, post office, urban
transport, prisons... everything has been there, apart from the national
public health service, the NHS.
From the 1990s, the former public service British Rail was divided into
pieces which were sold; the railway network and the management of the
lines were dissociated, and the management of the lines itself was
divided into several regional concessions; the train fleet has been
entrusted to separate companies, which rent them at high prices to the
line operators, providing their shareholders with millions in guaranteed
profits from year to year...
But the privatization of the British rail network quickly degenerated:
problems of coordination and loss of expertise led to numerous incidents
- until the Hatfield train disaster which, in 2000, cost the lives of
four people. The government found itself forced to renationalize the
network in 2002, and it never attempted to re-privatize it.
The repeated bankruptcies and scandals did not stop there, because they
also concerned the management of the lines themselves. Indeed, although
train prices in the United Kingdom are among the highest in Europe
(according to the British Department of Transport, they have increased
by more than 23% since privatization in real terms, therefore taking
into account the 'inflation), the quality of the rail service is as bad
as that of the service provided in France by the SNCF: delays and
cancellations of trains, crowded and dilapidated wagons... Also, in a
2017 survey carried out for the "We Own It" campaign» ("It Belongs to
Us"), which pushes for the renationalisation or remunicipalisation of
public services in the United Kingdom, 76% of British respondents said
they were in favor of a return to public control of the railway system
as a whole.
In France, the leaders did not opt for an all-out privatization of the
former public monopolies, but for their transformation. Air France,
France Télécom, EDF-GDF, La Poste, SNCF, etc., have become commercial
companies placed under more or less diluted control of the State, and
which have profited both from their rent-seeking situation in France and
government protection to expand abroad, including acquiring services
privatized by other countries.
The law for a new railway pact passed in June 2018 thus enabled the
"financial consolidation" of the SNCF Group: the State took over its
debt to the tune of 35 billion euros "in order to increase its
investment capacity in modernization and renovation of the railway
network. This law organized the opening to progressive and
differentiated competition, the end of status recruitment[5]and the
negotiation of a "new social contract" (sic!).
Since 2020, SNCF has been made up of a holding company and five limited
companies: SNCF Réseau, SNCF Gares & Connexions, Rail Logistics Europe
and SNCF Voyageurs. The latter manages all of SNCF's passenger transport
activities, including Ouigo (see box). SNCF forms, with the companies
Keolis and Geodis, the SNCF Group. The State is the sole shareholder of
SNCF, whose capital is non-transferable; and since 2010 it has also been
the organizing authority for the so-called "territorial balance trains"
(TET) that are the Intercités.
Coming back to the Paris-Clermont line, the State has launched a
modernization program concerning it, with work on the network financed
to the tune of 1 billion euros and with the arrival of new trains,
called "Oxygène" , delivery and commissioning of which are planned for
2026. However, there are already reports of major delays in the
production of these trains and in the operation of this line...
Finally, as a large part of the investment for the "global regeneration
of the network" must be fueled by the profits of SNCF Voyageurs, and as
the SNCF must increase its contribution in the next four years, it finds
itself confronted with contradictory injunctions. . For 2024 alone, the
State is requiring an investment of around 1.7 billion euros, or 70% of
its profits in 2022[6]. The SNCF will therefore have to run more trains
with fewer resources; maintain Intercity rates; ensure (unlike its
competitors) a larger part of the investment in the network while
assuming the dysfunctions which are the responsibility of the State. At
the same time, it has still not specified how the famous "100 billion
euros" plan for rail by 2040 that former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne
announced on February 24, 2023 will be financed. .
On January 14, 2024, LFI MP Clémentine Autain foolishly attributed, on
her Twitter account, the delay of a train she was on to the
"privatization" of the SNCF. Immediately mocked for her blunder, she
corrected the situation by declaring that, of course, the SNCF was not
privatized, but that "opening up to competition and liberalization
lead[ed]to a deterioration in traffic", and that the SNCF was "forced to
prepare for profitability because it was opening up to competition".
It is my opinion that our travels will hardly improve...
Vanina
Notes:
1. "Clermont-Paris train: "We cannot cut Auvergne off from Paris for so
long", waiting for concrete measures", FR3 Auvergne, January 24, 2024.
2. "When the French state sabotages the train", by Vincent Doumayrou, Le
Monde Diplomatique, June 2016.
3. "SNCF reform: the aftermath of the Spinetta report", Vie publique
website, February 26, 2018.
4. "Dismantling of the SNCF: 30 years late, will Macron repeat the same
mistakes as the British?», by Olivier Petitjean, on Basta!, February 20,
2018.
5. The special retirement plan was abandoned on January 1, 2021: railway
workers hired after this date no longer benefit from it. SNCF management
explains that the occasional daily cancellation of trains is due to a
lack of drivers, because many of them have retired.
6. Initially, this share was set at 60%.
"Progress is only valuable if it is shared by everyone" is not a
marketing lie. Indeed, observing as we do that progress is not shared by
all, and therefore that it is worthless, the SNCF has reinvented with
its "low cost offer" the 3rd class which had been abolished in France in
1956. 2013, she treated us to her famous Ouigo...
But the Ouigos are different from the 3rd class of yesteryear: these
trains almost all have the particularity of arriving at or departing
from a station that is difficult to access. For example, we take you to
Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy, forty-five minutes from Paris when public
transport works well or there are no traffic jams - very improbable
scenarios -, this which costs you 5 euros per person. Or you get off at
Saint-Exupéry station, and it takes you about an hour and around 10
euros per person to get to Lyon by public transport. There are also some
Ouigo Paris-Lyons from Paris to Lyon; but if they are a little below the
TGV for their price, their speed is fully Ouigo, it: count 5 hours...
In the 3rd class cars of yesteryear, the transport conditions were very
uncomfortable, but at least we left from the same place as "the others"
and we took the same time as them to reach our destination.
https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4099
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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