Is this any use?
https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/train-prices-across-europe
I have no idea who Vouchercloud is and I found it via the Mirror so it could be total Bollocks
That is about the cost to travel on a train, my post was about the running cost of providing the trains.
Thanks for the article James, I have not seen that one.
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@anon64436995, the problem for Macron is that being part of the Eurozone means your country’s budget deficit has to stay within certain margins otherwise you risk financial or other penalties. He is pro-EU so cannot be seen to ignore the rules like previous presidents have hence his government’s drive to cut costs. If Macron stays in power the days of ‘bottomless pit’ public spending will be over and rightly so.
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Fabulous Peter! Your cheque for 800€ needs to be made payable to ‘Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français’. I do hope you get your moneys worth :-
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Helpful answer Timothy, I am always/sometimes willing to look and learn. And I would be a fool to dismiss your opinions based on your long railway’s experience, Michael, so that comment applies to you too. And I rather stand in awe of you, Simon, so will ten postdated cheques save my bacon?
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OK Bill. You said it was unrealistic to compare à doctor to a train driver. Then in the next sentence you did just that, by saying you valued one more than other. It just seems like you maybe don’t know what you think about it. That’s all I meant.
Go away Peter, if you just want to be silly, I can not be bothered with nonsense 
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Glad your rant for 2018 is over… 
… I have always found trains to be fascinating… preferably the steam ones (of course)… but anything that whips me comfortably from here to there… and lets me watch the countryside unfold… that is pure heaven. 
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The very first railway was British built in the 1500s…I tend to see all infrastructure as built by the blood sweat and tears of the working man…I remember being involved in a court case once where a legal precedent was cited…the court case or rather mediation as there was no case… had nothing to do with railways…x 
Michael - sorry, re-reading your comment about costs I think you did say per passenger km, apologies that I missed that.
Regardless of the actual figure this is an interesting document - https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/modes/rail/studies/doc/2016-04-price-quality-rail-pax-services-final-report.pdf
I can’t quite see whether it gives enough information to support Michaels figures but:
UK - track 16,423km, passenger km travelled - 64,711 million km, revenue 9,186 million €
France - track 30,581km, passenger km travelled 89,499 million, revenue 11,119 million €
Revenue in this case is from passengers, don’t know about the UK but the SNCF claims nearly 33 billion € overall so most is not coming from passengers (is this the problem?),
Given that the population of France and the UK is nearly the same SNCF seems more popular as there are 38% more passenger km travelled. though revenue from passengers is only 21% greater than the UK so the cost per passenger km is, presumably, lower in France by 10% or so. At least the part that passengers are paying is 10% or so lower.
Does anyone know if the 50 billion or so of debit is “real” - i.e is incurring interest charges? If so I would guess that SNCF could be breaking even before it has to pay for historic debt.
Either way it looks as though it needs to make about 10% efficiency savings which, presumably, would not be impossible, but I guess with 150,000 employees its wage bill is an attractive place to look for economies - no doubt the reason for the Union’s displeasure.
Witchthatcher destroyed the mining industry, along with the good nature of the British people, who now follow the ‘me first, and to hell with the rest of you’ ideology she espoused.
What followed her blubbing into the taxi is what we have now - homelessness (she refused to allow funds from council house sales to be used for new house building), zillionaires stashing their ill-gotten gains in tax havens, while the poor use food banks.
She even stole children’s school milk.
I trust the nastiest of nastys is now in a nice warm place…
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Very well said Peter Goble - you are so right about public transport - for all the mealy-mouthed platitudes about fighting climate change, when it comes down to it, governments still dance to the tune of big business and their interests in people continuing to buy things, and use up scarce resources.
One huge contribution to stop air pollution is to help people afford and use a reliable, cheap, integrated public transport system.
It is terrifying how the media manipulate public opinion with lies and inuendo, to promote their paymasters’ version of events, and I fear for my grandchildren’s future in such a world as we have now.
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Fabulous idea Ann 
How? What’s your plan? Count me in :-
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“What’s your plan…?”
We working members of the public privilege those of our peers who promise to serve us in our Parliament to make plans to fulfil our wishes for ourselves and our fellow citizens.
It’s the system we have developed over centuries, we the people. We who work or have worked to create the wealth we should all share in equitably and consensually. It isn’t a difficult concept to understand but it’s easily dismissed by people who want to use their privilege to suit themselves and their interests rather than the people’s.
This simple and straight forward thesis is at the heart of socialist principles, which strike fear into people who are in the category described above.
Paul, good research, will try and answer a few things.
Firstly let us look at the SNCF bigger picture.
SNCF Mobilites, which operates trains and buses which last year returned a turnover of €31.831 billion up 4.3% on the previous year giving it an operating margin of €2.759 billion with a net profit of €895 million.
SNCF reseau which is the Infrastructure manager, 2017 turnover was €6.5 billion of which 3.568 billion was track usage charges from SNCF mobilities which returned a profit of €1.897 billion which was rapidly eaten up by financial charges of €1.172 billion, this answers your question on is the debt real and the answer is yes and is currently €46.630 billion.
To try and reduce the debt SNCF reseau owes to the government it keeps putting its track access charges up above inflation every year with SNCF mobilies saying that it is paying to much compared with the rest of Europe by 35% and is replacing single deck TGV trains to double-deck trains so that they can get more passengers on their trains to pay the high access charges.
Hope this helps to explain a few things.
Please don’t ask me where I got this information from lol.
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Great ‘plan’ - but where’s the ‘How’ ? Can you point to somewhere, anywhere on the planet where your socialist principles have, or do, actually work? Or is it just a question of…
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Very good, so lets have a socialist plunderer 
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Nice analogy, Simon, but I don’t remember Robin Hood giving Maid Marian a black eye and a split lip when she pleaded with him to give her more than two groats to feed thirty Merry Men, saying she should plan her housekeeping better because she was making him hurt her until she learned to respect him. That’s the raw capitalist way of dealing with people who seek justice through social action. The Americans do it all the time. No one in living memory has ever launched an attack on the USA until 9/11, when it was a bunch of their Saudi allies who turned on them.
Peter - that’s all very ‘interesting’ (!) but at the risk of repeating myself (!) where’s the ‘how’ in your masterplan? More specifically who pays in your equal world? 
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So, setting up for a possible split along network rail/train operators in the UK. I think I had heard that somewhere. I also seem to recall hearing that the arrangement has come in for criticism in the UK (might try to track down a reference but for now just the musings of what I laughably call a memory).
It seems odd, though, to saddle the part of the business least able to pay them with the historic costs & debt.
Unless someone is looking for that part to go bust taking the debt with it.
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