Travelers, shippers, elected representatives, railway workers. In short, all citizens have always had a very demanding relationship with the train and transportation. There are rarely people opposed to the train.
The national railway must serve all, everywhere and at the same time. He is asked to be always effective and the look that is given to him is one and that of a personal and collective appropriation almost total. Of necessity, as one asks much (and often too much), one is disappointed and one protests. But it is believed that our train is good despite everything.
After this reminder of the passion of the train, its presence and strong participation in the political and social history of France, in the happy moments and the more painful moments of national history, we will tell you a story, or Rather the "modern" (and therefore recent) history of the construction of a "new social framework" for the French railway.
In this story, as in any novel, there are gentiles and villains. There are Gentiles who become evil and vice versa. There are sometimes characters who seem to be few but who do (without the light of the common) many without falling into the plot. It's a story that's in space. And it is indeed this geometry that is exciting because it is out of flatness. The train in France and Europe is on a roller coaster!
In
the end, this history of the "social framework" is a small part of
the individual and collective life of millions of individuals. Initially
was opening up to competition in rail freight forwarder.
From the end of the 1970s onwards, a large movement of liberalization of economic exchanges took place in Europe. One of the concrete brands for transport was the death of the TRO (mandatory road pricing) which was a tariff grid to regulate the price of freight transport by road. Then came the avalanche of decisions of the EEC became EU to open to the "market" all the services organized in the network and obviously the public services.
Of course, it was the first bad guys who placed this liberalization by abusively using the principle of freedom and affirming "free and undistorted competition" to operate this "openness". This opening was presented fairly deceptively as a source of growth and lower prices for all.
Gradually, the price paid by the end user of transport has become unreal. So the citizen was able to take the plane for 30 francs and then 5.99 Euros! In short, the happiness of growth by low prices became reality.
Because of its heavy infrastructure and its organization, which is compulsory in order to respect a very high level of safety, by its fully internalized costs and therefore impossible to compare impartially with other modes of transport, the train has always been more and more expensive little "flexible".
