History
The SNCF was formed in 1938 with the nationalisation of France's five main railway companies (Chemin de Fer in English means railway, literally, 'path of iron'). These were the:
- Chemin de Fer de l'Est (Eastern Railway)
- Chemin de Fer de l'État (State Railway) (formed in 1909 from the merger of the Chemin de Fer de l'État and the Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest)
- Chemin de Fer du Nord (Northern Railway)
- Chemin de Fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM) (Paris, Lyon and Mediterranean Railway)
- Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi (Paris, Orléans, and Central Railway) (PO-Midi, formed in 1934 from the merger of the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and the Chemin de Fer du Midi)
The French state originally took 51% ownership of the SNCF and invested large amounts of public subsidies into the system. Today, the SNCF is 100% owned by the French government.
Read more about this topic: SNCF
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—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)