France

Network
The French railway network, as administered by SNCF Réseau, as of June 2007, is a network of commercially usable lines of 29213 km, of which 15141 km is electrified. 1876 km of those are high speed lines (LGV), 16445 km dispose of two or more tracks. 5905 km are supplied with 1,500 V DC, 9113 km with 25 kV AC at 50 Hz. 122 km are electrified by third rail or other means.

1,500 V is used on the south, and HSR lines and the northern part of the country use 25 kV electrification.

Trains drive on the left, except in Alsace and Moselle where tracks were first constructed while those regions were part of Germany.

Rail links to adjacent countries

 * Same gauge
 * Belgium — voltage change 25 kV AC/3 kV DC (except high-speed line to Brussels, same voltage)
 * Germany — voltage change 25 kV AC/15 kV AC
 * Great Britain via the Channel Tunnel — voltage change 25 kV AC/750 V DC third rail (except high-speed line to London, same voltage)
 * Italy — voltage change 25 kV AC or 1.5 kV DC/3 kV DC
 * Luxembourg — same voltage
 * Monaco — same voltage
 * Spain via the LGV Perpignan-Figueres — same voltage
 * Switzerland — voltage change 25 kV AC or 1.5 kV DC/15 kV AC
 * Break-of-gauge, /
 * Spain (on conventional tracks) — voltage change 1.5 kV DC/3 kV DC
 * No rail link to Andorra

Current status
The French non-TGV intercity service (TET) is in decline, with old infrastructure and trains. It is likely to be hit further as the French government is planning to remove the monopoly that rail currently has on long-distance journeys by letting coach operators compete.

Travel to the UK through the Channel Tunnel has grown in recent years, and from May 2015 passengers have been able to travel direct to Marseille, Avignon and Lyon. Eurostar is also introducing new Class 374 trains and refurbishing the current Class 373s.

The International Transport Forum described the current status of the French railways in their paper "Efficiency indicators of Railways in France":


 * The success of the TGV is undeniable (Crozet 2013). Work started in September 1975 on the first high-speed rail (HSR) line, between Paris and Lyon, and it was inaugurated in September 1981. New high-speed lines were opened in 1989 (towards the south-west), in 1993 (towards the north), etc. The high-speed network now covers 2,000 km, and will reach over 2,600 km in 2017 with the opening of the four lines currently being built.
 * The regionalisation of intercity and local services was tested in 1997 and fully deployed in the early 2000s. Since then, TERs (regional express trains) have seen traffic rise steeply (50% between 2000 and 2013) as, to a lesser extent, have services in the Ile de France region (25%).
 * Rail freight has been far less successful. The French network carried 55 billion tonne-km in 2001, but this figure scarcely reached 32 billion tonne-km in 2013. This weak performance contrasts sharply with the ambitious public policy of the last fifteen years. The Grenelle Environment Forum (2007–2010) oversaw the deployment of a costly freight plan that was no more effective than its predecessors.