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I suspect there will be those (here and in France) who will label this as a French Beeching, which is not really fair. But it does have some similarities, as well as raising the spectre of "privatisation". I've not found a text yet, so this is based on initial press reports, with these as the headline items:

• New staff to not get the current special railway status. This not only gives a job guaranteed for life, in common with most government jobs, but a very favourable pension scheme and retirement at 55.
• At least the two main bits of SNCF (now state sector businesses) to become private companies, which even if largely state-owned would have no open-ended debt guarantee. This is linked to the opening of the market for other operators (from 2020).
• The SNCF's purpose is defined, to run intercity links (but no new LGVs), freight, and commuter lines. Regional and local lines would be offered to the regions to take on or closed. The regions already fund most of these, so it's not as big a step as it sounds, but still...

To follow up on last week's rapport Spinetta, the text itself is here (https://www.ecologique-solidaire.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2018.02.15_Rapport-Avenir-du-transport-ferroviaire.pdf). It's obviously quite long (127 pages) and in French (though with plenty those English phrases that are de rigueur in business circles), and not easy to pick a few bits out of to translate. Fortunately there's this longish report from Railway gazette (http://www.railwaygazette.com/analysis/single-news/view/spinetta-report-urges-sncf-to-prepare-for-competition.html).

The minister announced today that they do intend to implement the main proposals, saying "the status quo is not an option". And work starts tomorrow morning! The prime minister will be holding meetings with the unions, SNCF, regional leaders, and user associations. French governments do have a demonstrated ability to react with a speed that is unknown here, added to which the Macron style of government is based on a tech start-up. Expect France soon to be back topping the rail strike statistics!

Is there a suitable translation of Beeching, regarding their expensive rural lines...

Paul

Not yet ... but there have been at least three phases of line closures in the past. There's an interesting graph at the bottom of page 14 of that report (attached below):

At the top are the lignes d'interet local - light railways and roadside tramways mostly set up under the Plan Freycinet of 1878, adding about 50% to the heavy rail network. The last were finished after WW1, just in time to become superfluous, and after 1930 they started to disappear rapidly.

A lot of smaller lines closed in 1938-39, at least to passengers. Then there was a further round of closures around 1970. I don't think these were seen as plans with an author - more like many the BR closures before and after the Beeching round.

The words say of the gentle increase in passenger km since 1980 that it's due to LGVs and reopenings. However, the 2700 km of LGVs alone give a much bigger rise than the graph, so closures in this period must have been more than 3000 km, on top of which there were about 5000 km of freight lines. And of course there a still lot of "zombie" lines, not closed but not being used either, just quietly rotting away.

There is a previous report being mentioned as a forerunner of the Spinetta one - the rapport Guillaumat of 1978, often said to propose a massive closure programme of lines and smaller stations. That's a bit odd, as it didn't say anything about specific closures (even in aggregate) and wasn't implemented. That last point was because it was done for the Barre government under Giscard, and while some closures followed it (but fewer than up to 1973) that stopped and even reversed a little when Mitterand was elected in 1981.

This earlier report was quite similar to the latest one in that it did propose price liberalisation and the removal of subsidy, and predicted that this would lead to the closure of 10,000 km of local lines with buses taking over. That was the same process that had been going on since 1930, helped by two phases of official "concertation" based on the idea of allocating transport functions to the most suitable medium. All very technocratic, à la francaise!

And Pierre Guillaumat certainly was a grand french technocrat - polytechnique,  corps des mines, wartime service for de Gaulle, he ran much of energy policy (including the atomic bomb programme) ending as head of Elf Aquitane up to 1977. So he was the obvious person to lead this commission wasn't he? (Jean-Cyril Spinetta, as you may have seen, was previously head of Air France.)

There was a splurge of news today saying that Spinetta wanted SNCF prices to go up. Closer examination showed this was about the cheap ones rising - i.e. Ouigo. While interviewees jumped to the assumption that meant scrapping Ouigo, what he actually said was that Ouigo was growing out of its launch phase, and soon should be covering its operating costs - it doesn't yet. He also warned that some account should be taken of the extent to which it cannibalised proper TGV fares (I refuse to say InOui).

Now our advance fares do not, I'm sure, meet that test of covering their costs, however defined. And he doesn't say the same about the effect of "yield management" (another of those Anglicisms he uses) on TGV fares. Instead, he says their "revenue management" tools are still not very sophisticated. And he should know, given his airline background.

So it looks as if the setting up of Ouigo as a separate service has led to him seeing its place in the mix of fares offered in a quite different way from varying fares in the same train.

Don't hang about, these French governments, do they? They've only had the Spinetta report for less than two weeks (well, officially) and already they are off and governing.  The Prime Minister announced this morning that they are to press ahead with legislation to implement two of Spinetta's big proposals: recasting SNCF as a more "normal" company, and removing the public-sector status (as fonctionnaires) of new staff. The third, to look at little-used rural lines with a view to passing them on to the regions or otherwise closing them, has been dropped.

However, what Spinetta proposed for those minor lines can be done piecemeal and even without legislation, as they are in any case already supported by regions. He proposed that the infrastructure subsidy for TERs, currently paid by the state, should be transferred to the regions, and that would pass the buck for closure decisions. The other two aspects will need new legislation, and the corporate status one probably needs to be done before the "open railways" requirement applies to TGVs in 2020.

Feathers have been ruffled most by the proposal to use ordonnances (regulations) again, as for the labour law. Most laws, as here, are filled out by secondary legislation, but these cannot be used in certain areas reserved for parliamentary laws. Ordonnances are a special kind that can, specifically enabled by a parliamentary vote, and which can be converted into ordinary laws by a second vote. Their use avoids line by line debates and votes in parliament, which for something contentious might see several thousand amendments tabled. It also allows the government to directly negotiate the new law with non-parliamentary interested parties, and to control that process.

The unions, having been reacting at cross purposes so far, have now produced a plan of "action". It's a series of strikes, naturally, to back up their objections to both the proposed changes of legal status (of both SNCF and their employees) and the manner of legislating by ordonnances.

The strikes will be for two days, followed by three days at work, repeated for 90 days in all - so 36 strike days in all. The first strike day is 3rd April. Note that the period includes several holiday weekends, but the fixed schedule ignores those; most of them are affected in part.

Presumably the usual conditions about minimum service levels, plus some non-striking staff, will leave some (perhaps 30%) of trains still running. But if you were planning a trip in France with rail travel, look out!

Here's a list of the strike dates:
April   3/4/8/9/13/14/18/19/23/24/28/29
May   3/4/8/9/13/14/18/19/23/24/28/29
June   2/3/7/8/12/13/17/18/22/23/27/28

I thought you might want a perspective on how the strike has affected things on our route, Guingamp-Carhaix. Our line, along with the neighbouring Guingamp-Paimpol line, is operated by CFTA, a subsidiary of Transdev, through a leasing/subcontracting arrangement with SNCF, but both lines are marketed as part of the TER Bretagne network.

At this point it would be useful to introduce you to the service level that would normally be operated - see timetable at https://cdn.ter.sncf.com/medias/PDF/bretagne/SNCFBret_HV2018_Web-Ligne25_v2_tcm55-171732_tcm55-172974.pdf

Basically, you are looking at a weekday service of roughly 5 trains in each direction spread out between 0630 and 2045 over the whole Guingamp-Carhaix route, plus a couple of short Guingamp-Callac and Callac-Carhaix peak workings. There are a couple of extra later trains on Friday evenings, including a 2207 Guingamp-Carhaix that grahame would probably kill for, and around 3 trains in each direction at weekends.

TER Bretagne have been running a minimum service level across the network during the strike period (a concept alluded to by stuving above), and this has "evolved" in three phases, as they have been able to count on more rail workers turning up for duty over time.

FIRST 2 WEEKS OF STRIKE - No trains on the route at all, regardless of whether it was a strike day or not, with replacement coaches instead. Nothing at all after the 1745-ish service from Guingamp, and nothing after 1400-ish from Carhaix, except on Fridays where a couple of later coach services run at around 1700 and 1830.

MID APRIL TO MID MAY - Very limited train service reappears on non-strike days (2 or 3 round trips tops), with coaches filling the gaps. All-coach service on strike days. Still nothing at all after the 1745-ish service from Guingamp, and nothing after 1400-ish from Carhaix, except on Fridays where a couple of later coach services run at around 1700 and 1830.

MID MAY TO PRESENT - Limited train service detailed above begins to run on strike days as well, with coaches filling the gaps. Still nothing at all after the 1745-ish service from Guingamp, and nothing after 1400-ish from Carhaix on Mondays-Thursdays, but later 2030-ish train from Guingamp added on Fridays, and 1830-ish coach service from Carhaix on Fridays is now a train.

Frankly, from my perspective it has made planning my travel a real pain in the backside, not just because of the obvious service disruption, but the knock-on caused by the fact that services are currently being planned simply to "get something on", with much less thought being given to onwards connections and the like. Not only does this affect my bread and butter longer-distance trip planning, but the lack of connections at Guingamp on Saturdays has made what were pretty seamless day trips to places like Paimpol. Lannion, and even further afield to destinations like Brest completely impossible - and even if they did join up, they don't allow my dogs on the replacement coaches...

It has affected wider businesses as well. One example is an insurance shop in Callac that can only open in the mornings as the last service back to Guingamp is the 1400-ish service from Carhaix.

It will obviously be interesting to see whether the unions choose to strike beyond June. The smart money this end seems to be on them taking a summer break and then resuming their action in September, but I don't have that from anyone official.

Hmmm ... would love it, but I'm none-violent.  And there is much else in your report and what I've learned from elsewhere that would be great concern if replicated on TransWilts; of course, Callac is not Melksham so logically its needs and what's key will differ.   One hopes (but I have no certainty) that the folks who arrange the services understand the needs and key points.  And THAT is so much harder to achieve than one would imagine.

In terms of comparison, I think you'd be struck by just how similar the infrastructure of Callac is to Melksham. Callac has a fully functioning town hall, supermarkets, independent shops, cafes and bars, sports centre, post office, banks, market place, along with extras such as a cinema, camping and a lake with associated water sports.

However, Callac had a population of 2211 in 2015, whereas Melksham has a population that's been measured as anywhere between 19000 and 27000, depending on which criteria you use. Melksham has had to continually build new housing and associated infrastructure to cope with its seemingly endless growth, whereas Callac has suffered from the general depopulation trend in this part of the world, with young people leaving for bigger cities in search of work and related opportunities, and you can see the result of that in the number of empty houses and shops you'll see dotted around.

This has been partially offset by the popularity of the town with the British, who are attracted to its location, established Central Brittany expat community and relatively good transport and communication links. This has been bolstered by the excellent work of the Association des Amis - http://associationdesamis.com/2-welcome/4593260906 - a joint French-British initiative to bring the community together after a rough patch in relations during the 2000s.


As far as that impacts on rail service planning, the main flow is schoolchildren and college students which the timetable has always catered for. Up until recently, the timetable also tried to cater for commuters into Guingamp and Carhaix, but found it simply could not attract them onto the services in a losing battle with a predominantly car-owning culture, encouraged by the need to own one due to the geography of the area. Therefore, it has instead been adapted to encourage leisure and longer distance travel by maximising (in non-strike times at least) connections with TGV services to Paris, Rennes and elsewhere. This partially explains the demand for later services on Friday evenings, as passengers from further afield celebrate the end of their week with a meal or such before returning home. There is also a reasonably lively Friday evening scene in Guingamp which can generate trade for the 2207 service.

It did have a bit of a competence wobble when an experiment to speed up the services by removing many of the intermediate stops was attempted a few timetables ago, but the depth of local opposition soon put paid to that, and all trains now call at all stations on the route.

It strikes me that Callac inded hae similar to somewhat more faciities to Melksham and yet is an order of magnitude smaller.  Is this because

* People interact / get out a lot more in Callac
or
* There's a far higher level of public funding for things in Callac
or
* Things run much more efficiently / cost effective in Callac
or
* There's no need to make a significant profit
or
* People simply don't have quite so many cars there



Connections and local connectivity to hamlets indeed.   Better take 5 minutes longer than leave out a stop on a service that's as infrequent as yours or ours!

Edit to correct quoting

Yes and no.

People do interact and get out in Callac - There is regularly something on either in the town or surrounding villages, and you'll often find people out and about and saying hello. Also, the Wednesday market is generally well-attended, and is a key focal point for interaction.

On the other hand, I often see older folk looking out the windows while I'm walking the dogs, and I'm told this is one of the few signs of a hidden isolated section of the community who don't get out and see anyone other than those - official, family or otherwise - who call round to see them.


In 2015, the overall operating allowance paid by Central government to Callac was 776000 euro, which is slightly above the national average. It raised 862000 euro through local taxes, and 121000 in other taxes, both figures slightly below the national average.


In 2015, Callac ran a budget that was almost exactly balanced, with a slight surplus on the day-to-day operating side offset by a slight deficit on the resources and investment side.

On the public sector side, the paid staff are supported by volunteers to a greater or lesser extent depending on the facility concerned. Some facilities, such as the cinema, are entirely volunteer-run. In terms of the independent shops, they are almost all sole traders or family-run.


Whilst there obviously wont be as many cars in and around Callac as there would be in and around Melksham, there is a predominantly car-owning culture here, encouraged by the need to own one due to the geography of the area. The only form of public transport other than for schools is the train north to Guingamp or south to Carhaix, and so to get anywhere else you need a car.

This is why the key flows on the line are the ones less suited to car use - ie schools/college and longer-distance traffic.

Edit to include correct southbound train destination.

Today (Thursday) is the last of this almost interminable series of strikes. So what next? The answer depends on which union you ask.

The "string of pearls" strikes were agreed by four unions (pretty much all of them, I think). Two of those (Unsa ferroviare and CFDT Cheminots) don't want to continue during the holidays, though whether that's for their own benefit or because holidays are more serious than working in France I couldn't say.

The other two (CGT Cheminots and SUD-Raill, i.e. the usual suspects) have agreed on a two-day strike on 6/7 July, which is the start of school holidays. They are vaguely promising more strikes in July, timed to influence governmental or parliamentary processes. In August - probably not. Well, even strikers need a holiday.

A few years ago we were in Savoie visiting my uncle. A national day of action was announced for the day when we were intending to travel home, by way of Lyon and Lille. Given that our Eurostar tickets were non-exchangeable, but that we could do something about our SNCF bookings, the best plan seemed to be to travel to Lille on the day before and stay overnight (shades of Graham's defensive scheduling). At breakfast the next morning we asked the waiter when the demonstration would begin. "After lunch" was the answer - very French.

What I didn't say, when the strikes ended, was that the reform bill became law at the same time (27th June). After various minor amendments, it did implement both reforms kept from the original announcement - making SNCF into a "normal" company, but state owned (and so implementing the EC's competition requirements), and ending the public-sector status (as fonctionnaires) of new recruits.

Of the third original proposal, I said:


Well, it looks as if that was right. The boss of SNCF-Réseau has been doing some thinking aloud with a journalist present, on the subject of reducing the cost of minor lines. In part he's responding to some regions who have been asking to take them over (as well as running the trains) - they would then get contractors to do the work (in both cases). He's got a list of 50 possible cost-reduction measures, presented to the regions who, remember, plan TER services and pay SNCF-Mobilités  to run them, who pay SNCF-Réseau for track access.

I've not seen a complete list of this "kit" of options, but those reported include:

Reducing twin track lines to single - but he means renewing one track, while leaving the second unused and unmaintained until more trains justify its renewal. (La Roche sur Yon to La Rochelle was cited as already having this done: about 60 km but very wiggly.)
Operating short branches as "one train on track" with almost no signals
Using simplified lightweight OLE
Using battery hybrids and discontinuous OLE
Using bitumen to "glue" ballast ("grave-bitume")
and ... giving the maintenance of a whole line to a private contractor.

Not only the unions, but politicians and journalists too react to that last one by citing the disaster, absurdities, etc. caused by privatisation in Britain, though of course representing that as even more of a disaster than Railtrack actually was.

Jeantet made the point that he can't spend more on a line unless he gets more income from more trains using it, thus passing the buck back to the regions. He insists SNCF has to retain control and do any subcontracting, on behalf of the regions. He said the applying all the relevant measures should give a saving of about 30%.

One of Spinetta's ideas was opening the network to operators other than SNCF. In part that's mandated by an EU directive, but he wanted to promote competition not just to enable it sulkily. The first round of this programme has just been announced, for two cross-country lines: Nantes-Lyon and Nantes-Bordeaux.

That choice may be because these are TET (« trains d’équilibre du territoire ») services run by direct contract between the central government and SNCF-mobilités. They cost €25M per year, and carry a million passengers, and presumably their newly-refurbished trains will be used rather than the contractors bringing their own. There will be an official notice in the OJ soon, but the ITT isn't due until early 2020. Exactly where the competition is meant to happen is not clear; while the bidding process is sure to be, I presume the service will not be split.

I was going to add a bit of extra detail about the current service, but some of the reports I'm seeing are wrong. The best I can find about Nantes-Lyon is that there are two Intercités each way each day, a bit under 7 hours but that's to Lyon Vaise (a Metro station). However, there are four through TGVs - via Paris, or rather Massy, and much faster (to below 4:30). On top of that there are about four identified itineraries with a change in Paris, where one of the TGVs is a OUIGO, and timed at 5-6 hours. The Intercités fare is quoted as €90/180 and I'm assuming the TGV will usually cost a lot more, with one leg a OUIGO it'll be in between.

For Nantes-Bordeaux there's only one Intercités most days, and no through TGVs or part-OUIGO journeys.