Réseau Ferré de France
Encyclopedia
Réseau Ferré de France (RFF), owns and maintains the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 national railway network. The trains are operated by SNCF
SNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...

, the national railway company, but due to European Union Directive 91/440
EU Directive 91/440
The EU Directive 91/440 is European Union legislation that sets out a framework and requirements for railways in the EU to allow open access operations on railway lines by companies other than those that own the rail infrastructure...

, the French government was required to separate train operations from the railway infrastructure.

Unlike other infrastructure managers RFF does not at the moment provide maintenance services or rail traffic control operations which have both been retained by SNCF
SNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...

. Furthermore SNCF has retained the ownership of stations.

Overview

The RFF was constituted with SNCF's infrastructure assets, and debts were transferred from the SNCF book to RFF's. Currently RFF is mainly a financial structure focusing on debt refinancing, and it contracts the majority of its infrastructure management to SNCF. In the future, it is expected to be capable of building, maintaining and renovating the French national railway infrastructure on its own. Signalling on RFF infrastructure is implemented and maintained by SNCF.

The creation of RFF was criticised because of the financial options chosen: RFF is subsidised by the French government in order to pay the interest on debt previously borne by the SNCF. SNCF now has a positive operating income and thus enables competition to be opened.

External links

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