France's national train company had a $1.5 Billion profit last year

[XOKCowboy]

From Americablog. Link to the original article.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/frances-national-train-company-scored.html

The rail renaissance in Europe is racing ahead like a 320kph TGV yet Guillaume Pepy, head of SNCF, sees risks as well as opportunities as he celebrates the centenary of the reborn Mont Blanc Express aboard one of its six new electric traction trains.

Last weekend saw the start of the French summer holiday season and 1.3 million people thronged Paris's stations as they headed for the mountains and sea. The elongated twin-set TGVs pulling out of the Gare de Lyon virtually every five minutes are packed with up to 1,000 passengers. The concourse and platforms are so crammed with anxious families and international backpackers it's surprising they all get on board on time.

Even in the driving rain sweeping through the French Alps, accompanied by thunder and lightning, drenched walkers and climbers rush to join the "express" linking St Gervais with Vallorcine on the Franco-Swiss border and offering stunning views of the Mer de Glace.

Pepy, SNCF chairman and chief executive (PDG) since February, says that, unlike his predecessors who had to manage a railway recession, he is presiding over an accelerating boom. The state-owned SNCF delivered a net €1.1bn (£875m) profit last year and first-half figures, due next week, are said to be sparkling. Pepy envisages up to 80m extra passenger trips this year or an increase of around 8%.

"This change will speed up because we are facing a twin energy and environment crisis," he says, pointing to surging fuel costs and growing personal worries about carbon footprints. "People want sustainable mobility and, in France, more trains and more SNCF."

We all know of course that the Republicans and especially McCain have been trying to kill Amtrak forever. For our own good of course. :sarcasm:

[TahitiNut]

1. The trains of Europe are a dream. We should be half as lucky.

They're the absolute best way to visit France, Germany, Belgium, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands ... at least from my experience.

[XOKCowboy]

5. Another great thing about European rail is...

the train stations are right downtown usually with restaurants, pubs, hotels adjacent. It's so much nicer than airports.

[charlie]

9. Japan too

I miss their trains fiercely. The country is just filthy with rail, even podunk outposts have regular service. With ridiculously precise arrival times, like 5:07. And a quarter acre of bike/scooter racks outside the stations.

If Americans could have the same sort of reliable and convenient experiences, they'd never go back. And it'd go a long way toward resocializing us, something we sorely need. Getting Americans to adopt train etiquette, learn to behave while aboard, that might take awhile, though.

[XOKCowboy]

15. Well...

on a trip from Milan to Florence I was surprised at the rudeness of the passengers. Mostly high school kids who I later found out were on the way back from a school trip of some kind. The two chaperones were very apologetic and did their best to keep them in check.

[trusty elf]

34. I haven't ridden on Italian trains in a while,

but I think you were just unlucky that day.

Speaking of unlucky, I had to think of something that happened years ago on a train from Milano to Basel. We were ensconced in our compartment waiting for the train to leave, when at the last minute an American tourist got on board. Suddenly we heard him cry out from the corridor "a thousand BUCKS ! ! ! ", followed by a loud crash. The poor guy realized that he had been pickpocketed, and he was so pissed off that he kicked a hole in the wood panelling in the corridor! Not only did he lose all that cash, but he had to pay for the damage too! :-(

[Doctor Cynic]

10. Even China is much better.

Partly because all those millions upon millions rely on it, but they're building high speed rail at lightening speed.

[Prophet 451]

40. We pay for it in high petrol (gasoline) prices though

Petrol is about eight dollars a gallon here (England). Admittedly, that's unusually high right now but even normally, we pay about twice what you do but that high price includes subsidising a network of public transport that was quite superb. I say "was" because Thatcher privatised everything in sight, including the rail and bus networks and the result, as always when you privatise monopoly fields, has been higher prices and worse service. In comparison, the state-run networks of France and Germany are fantastic: Clean, usually on-time and relatively cheap.

That said and desireable as it may be, I doubt you'd be able to get most Americans to switch to public transport. The American self-image is too tied up in the car (and, to a lesser extent, the motorcycle). Most teen movies include the quintessential American experiance of getting your first shag in a car (I'm convinced this proves that movie writers haven't done this in years. Have you ever actually tried it?). How many teen movies involve the hero trying to get his own car? Or adult movies where much of the dialogue takes place in a car? In European movies, you see this kind of thing a lot less.

[XOKCowboy]

46. Shagging in the back seat of a car... LOL

Yep that's something that you only do once.

I'd hope that you are wrong about Americans and public transportation. Most of us have never had the opportunity (except in NYC or maybe DC) to use a good mass transit system. I'm not so sure that we wouldn't use pt more if we had a viable system.

[TahitiNut]

51. Yup... I understand.

I have more than my share of memories of automotive erotica. (Sigh.)

I haven't been back since the 80s, but I'll never forget (as just one example) Victoria Station... the immense sense of history as well as my appreciation for how terrific it was to be able to go virtually anywhere by rail. I loved the train cars - clean, comfortable, convenient. As a people-watcher, I was in heaven.

There's one aspect that we could never replicate: the history. For me, it was like a ride at an adult Disneyland. Indeed, that's kinda how I felt about Europe. It's like Living History today and every day ... wallowing in the heritage of centuries of hard lessons learned.

I'd personally be more than willing to tack a $1-2/gallon tax on gasoline to create a national rail system.

[Lorien]

68. Agreed. They make travel in those countries

virtually stress free. At one time America's rail system was the envy of the world. It's a tragedy that we decided to become a first world joke when it comes to public transportation.

[Canuckistanian]

2. The Europeans are light years ahead of us

And by "us", I mean Canada, too. It's really a shame.

[trusty elf]

37. It really is a shame.

I am so grateful for the excellent public transport here in Switzerland. We have a car, but we hardly ever use it, and could actually get along just fine without it. We live in a village 20 km outside of Basel. I can ride my bike or walk to the station, hop on a train and be in Basel in 15 minutes, or in Zurich in less than an hour.

Since moving here our local train station has been completely renovated and improved. Not only that, but a tunnel was recently completed that diverts car traffic around the village, and at the moment they are busy turning the former village high street into a pedestrian zone.

[gateley]

3. If the Bush and the Reps are trying to kill Amtrak (not much of a loss) -

Maybe some new enterprising Railroad Barons will come along and change how we travel and commute in this country.

Are they trying to do away with Amtrak because trains don't have engines that run on gasoline?

[XOKCowboy]

4. Amtrak started getting gutted under Reagan

According to the Reaganite mindset it was just a waste of taxpayer money. So they tried to "improve" it (meaning make it profitable) by cutting funding for real improvements like high speed trains, track and station improvements, etc. Gutting Amtrak has been one of McCain's aims for years.

It's either short-sightedness or his auto/oil interests want Amtrak to fail.

[gateley]

6. Well these are different times, and they should be aware of that.

I have hopes that Amtrak will Rise Again (or a new system based on the European models) once we get Bush out of the WH.

Am I dreaming?

[Tektonik]

7. Put bullet trains along our busiest corridors, and they'd easily be profitable

SF to SD (with a line from LA to Vegas)
Bos to DC
Miluakee, Chicago, Pittsburgh to NYC (with a line to Detroit)
San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas

[ColbertWatcher]

14. The Trans-Texas Corridor is drooling over the possibility...

...that the public will pay for their mess.

Corridor Watch is working against the mess.

[1]

8. ummm... $1.5 billion profit last year? ha, ha, ha! BULLSHIT!

ha!

$1.5 billion? this is not an oil company, its a train service. you people and your jokes. you kill me...

:rofl:



*i can't breath*

and even if that number was anywhere near close to their profit, wouldn't those french train fuckers be *gouging* their ridership to make such obscene profits? shouldn't there be windfall profits taxes on those french train fuckers? fucking their ridership so much?



$1.5 billion. heh. do any of you even have a clue how businesses operate? especially something like a train service? you kill me...

:rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

12. can you explain yourself? the op is simply quoting the article.

[1]

18. i can. the op and you need to start thinking and not just believing what you see in a "link"...

profit = what's left to those french train guys from the money collected on their tickets...

after..

deducting wages, fuel, costs of trains and cars, insurance, maintenance, lawsuits and lawyers, food, spikes, bla bla bla, etc.

those deductions are a huge number.



$1.5 billion dollars = $1,500,000,000. an unbelievable number.




think about what kind of fare you would have to charge your passengers in a country smaller than the state of texas in order to eat all of the costs associated with providing a train service and produce a profit of $1,500,000,000.

$1,5 BILLION DOLLARS.


it is not possible. if a train service or an airline can even break even it's considered a miracle. any profit at all is something special. $1,5 BILLION DOLLARS. not fucking possible.


before you post, even with a "link", think about what you are posting. do the math in your head. if it is obviously bullshit, why even embarrass yourself.



and yeah, i'm sure they have nice train service in france. did you pay $10,000 for your ticket. i didn't think so...

[Hannah Bell]

24. Well, it's euros, not dollars, for starters.

the same figures are reported in many mainstream & business sources, e.g.:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/challenge-to-tgv-as-ryanair-brings-budget-air-travel-to-france-798407.html

They operate trains not only in France, but outside France proper, e.g. Eurostar service through the English channel tunnel. In 2003 they did 5 billion Euro in business & paid 1 billion of that for track access.

I lived in France, & I don't find it unbelievable.

But you'd have better luck convincing people if you weren't so rude.

[Hannah Bell]

27. more than 300 million passengers per year.

If each is a $10 trip, that's 3 billion.

Most trips are quite a lot more.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_June_9/ai_n25490052

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. 300 million is just the high-speed rail service - it's a billion passengers in all

from your link. And from ColbertWatcher's link (#27), their total sales were 23.7 billion euros. So the profit of 1.1 billion euros is eminently believable, without it being 'gouging' as our friend suggested. If the infrastructure is already set up, and the trains are well filled and efficiently run, it's not surprising.

[dysfunctional press]

48. the passenger rail service probably isn't even the biggest money-maker.

cargo is most likely where they generate a sizeable chunk of their income. especially with the chunnel.

[ColbertWatcher]

26. Here ya go: direct from the French fuckers' mouths...

http://www.sncf.com/en_EN/html/media/CH0002-FINANCE-KEY-FIGURES/BR0446-2007-4th-year-in-profit/MD0005_20080319-DOCUMENT-CONSULT.html

[Zynx]

49. Freight rail companies routinely turn profits as large or larger.

France is a country of 60 million people. That would mean in the course of a year an average of $25 of profit per person in the country. That's quite believable.

[Blue_Tires]

70. the size of the country doesn't matter

since it is surrounded by several other countries with their people coming and going through...for starters, i'm willing to bet france gets a wee bit more tourist flow than texas...And why is it so hard to understand the number of people using a decent rail system?

[XOKCowboy]

13. No please help us clueless fuckers

Enlighten us with your brilliance please.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. Who is "you people"? n/t

[1]

20. spare me your indignation...

people who post obviously bullshit from any "blog" they happen to stumble across without first thinking about the content fall into the category of

"you people"

and then only because i was trying to be nice with that phrase...

[ColbertWatcher]

22. Spare me your magnanimity...

...the figure is correct:

"The state-owned SNCF delivered a net €1.1bn (£875m) profit last year..."

--Guardian

Skepticism is good, but a little googling can make it better.

[1]

25. that figure is bullshit. believe your guardian.co.uk google hit. i don't...

why aren't the good people of france up in arms because they are being systematically raped by their train service? billions of dollars of profits from a state run service? at their expense?

why are they not striking for a more fair and equitable train service fare? burning trains and what not? the french don't put up with bullshit.

ummm... because it is not true?

hummm...

[Hannah Bell]

28. more than 300 million passengers per year, not all of them french.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_June_9/ai_n25490052

plus freight.

french trains link with trains in all of europe.

ridership is heavy.

300 million x $10 = 3000 million, or 3 billion gross.

300 million x $100 = 30,000 million, or 30 billion.

[ColbertWatcher]

30. LOL! n/t

[Hugabear]

31. Provide some facts to back up your argument, or STFU

Others have provided facts, figures, and links. Yet the only thing you seem to be capable of doing is running your mouth, spewing a bunch of rhetoric without any substance whatsoever. You dismiss the figures given in the article, yet you have nothing to back up your statements.

[burythehatchet]

43. Actually forget about the facts, just STFU. What a fuckin tool

Damn I can't stand people like that.

[Prophet 451]

38. Your arguement is bullshit

Firstly, the Guardian is a highly reliable source. Secondly, the profit was euros, not dollars. Thirdly, the profit was caused by unusually high traffic, not excessive charging and fourthly, the French aren't up in arms about it because it is a state-run company and under it's charter, any profit goes straight back into improving the service.

[conspirator]

41. At their expense? NOT. SNCF profits suposedly go back to the people

either directly in rail network investments, or indirectly because obviously SNCF pays taxes.

[Hugabear]

19. "French train fuckers"?

I'd alert on your ass, but I want to keep you around for just a little longer. You'll provide me with some amusement.

[1]

21. be my guest, alert away...

if those "french train fuckers" really did clear $1.5 Billion dollars last year from their ridership then i put them in the same category as those "american oil fuckers" that are raping me at the pump this year.

what is your problem with my phrasing? because they are french? because it involves trains?

anybody, regardless of nationality or mode of transport, that reaps billions of dollars of profit from ordinary citizens is a "fucker."



alert on that...

[ColbertWatcher]

23. As you can see in my post #22...

...the amount is 1.5 billion Euros.

be my guest, alert away...
Posted by CasualWatcher9

if those "french train fuckers" really did clear $1.5 Billion dollars last year from their ridership then i put them in the same category as those "american oil fuckers" that are raping me at the pump this year.

what is your problem with my phrasing? because they are french? because it involves trains?

anybody, regardless of nationality or mode of transport, that reaps billions of dollars of profit from ordinary citizens is a "fucker."



alert on that...

Maybe you should exercise your imagination a bit.

In the Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/09/rail.sncf.montblancexpress) it says:

"Last weekend saw the start of the French summer holiday season and 1.3 million people thronged Paris's stations as they headed for the mountains and sea. The elongated twin-set TGVs pulling out of the Gare de Lyon virtually every five minutes are packed with up to 1,000 passengers."

Maybe the reason they got such a huge profit was not because they were overcharging people, but because of volume; there were so many people using public transportation that it was making some money.

[Hannah Bell]

32. The poster has possibly never been out of the states, & is imagining

amtrak transplanted to europe.


when i first went to france, seattle was the biggest city i'd ever been in. it had bus service where the best connections between busses were at least 15 minutes apart, & often a hour.

i was visiting a friend, & he suggested we go somewhere by subway. i insisted he check the schedule, because i didn't want to have to sit & wait.

he looked at me like i was crazy, & told me they come every few minutes.

i wouldn't believe him.

such is the power of what we think we know.

[ColbertWatcher]

33. Yes.

Which is why I said the thing about the "imagination".

1.3 million people in a weekend!?

There's a reason why they have the bullet trains and keep working toward better ones.


V150 French TGV high-speed train broke the world speed record at 574.8 kilometres (357 miles) per hour on April 3, 2007

[XOKCowboy]

45. That would be my thought....

Or it could be "the French thing" the poster is upset about. I know one thing. Around 1 million people went up into the mountains last weekend from Denver (very nice holiday weekend). The difference is they all drove cars and spent hours in traffic on the way up and back.

[ThoughtCriminal]

36. We should be so lucky

God forbid any entitiy should work so well that it makes a profit. They might, you know, invest in upgrading service or something.

Considering the number of passengers served, a $1.5 billion is good but hardly obscene - especially compared to oil companies.

[Zynx]

50. There's a huge difference between 1.5 billion and 40 billion.

[ColbertWatcher]

55. Finally. 50 posts in and we get perspective. Thank you Zynx. n/t

[tkmorris]

29. Somebody got drunk and dropped their cloak

Oopsie.

[charlie]

35. SNCF is a rail freight company too

Not all their revenues come from ridership. Think of that before you jumped in to lord your giggly supremecy?

Deutsche Bahn, Union Pacific, and East Japan Railway all report comparable profits, all higher than SNCF. Are they bullshitting too?

[Hannah Bell]

71. CasualWatcher9? CasualWatcher9? Did you get your answer?

Can you *breath* (sic) yet?

[Hannah Bell]

11. it's state-owned. how does it "profit"?

[Prophet 451]

39. Fairly simple really

Essentially, it works like this: France figures out how much it costs to keep the system running. Then figures out an estimate of how many people are likely to ride the service and for how long and apportions cost accordingly, based on a percentage of the costs (plus a few cents a ticket so they have a little leeway in their figures). If more people use the service than expected (in this case, a lot more) then the system ends up with a profit.

Because it's state-owned and France has a highly developed Socialist ethic, the terms of it's charter (according to my father who spends a quarter of the year in France) dictates that profit goes straight back into improving the service. I.e. they only make a profit temporarily which is then used for further upgrades.

[burythehatchet]

44. Revenue > expenses = profit

[smalll]

16. Yeah, but trains run on electricity. No problem when 40% of your nation's energy needs come from

a highly efficient (and virtually carbon-neutral) source:

Vive la puissance nucléaire! :shrug:

[dysfunctional press]

47. and when your country is the size of some states, it helps as well.

paris-marseilles is not nearly as formidable a challenge as nyc-san francisco.

[YankmeCrankme]

54. Yes, but these kinds of trains don't have to be done a national scale in the US

Is it possible to make state level high speed trains work/profitable? What about LA-SF? I don't really think that's an excuse not to try it.

[ColbertWatcher]

58. I can think of one big, fat EXCUSE why it isn't being tried...

[XOKCowboy]

64. Boy that is a FAT one too!!

That picture is just waiting to be Photoshopped. I'm thinking a Porky Pig kinda thing.

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

[dysfunctional press]

62. first, they'd have to aquire the land to lay down the tracks...

and i'm guessing that would be a pretty sizeable investment for la-sfo...

our infrastructure and society is built around the personal vehicle. it would be better to develop better means of propulsion for those, than the internal combustion engine.

[ColbertWatcher]

65. Are there any existing track? And who owns it?

Hell, if all else fails, we always have eminent domain!

LOL!

[dysfunctional press]

69. existing track would most likely already be in use...

and wouldn't be compatible for use with high-speed rail. tearing up existing track would probably be extremely problematic, as it would mean re-routing freight/passenger lines that already use that line.

[NuttyFluffers]

66. *snort* all they have to do is buy repossessed property through the Central Valley

oh, i'm baaad. :spank:

but those people are really hurting down there. i've noticed bullet trains often create secondary hubs of commerce, which is what desperate cities like Stockton through Fresno need desperately. everyone's suffering from the meth epidemic, low wages, and bad economy. and now the repossessed homes are just decimating the Central Valley. they could definitely use the hubs and construction project. besides, those lots are just sitting there being picked over.

[muriel_volestrangler]

72. However, France is roughly the size of the north east of the US

defined as all the states to the north and east of Virginia and Pennsylvania (and including those 2) - about 575,000 sq. km, compared to metropolitan France's 547,000 sq. km. And the population of those 12 states plus DC is about 69 million, from the Wikipedia list - a touch more than France's 61 million.

It's a significant part of the US population that could be covered in that area, and you could extend to the rest of the states around the Great Lakes, and the rest of the Atlantic coast, and cover even more reasonably densely populated areas.

[dysfunctional press]

73. the costs would be astronomical as well...

our infrastruture/society is built around the personal conveyance. we'd be much better off making the investment in better ways of propelling them, than to build vast networks of new rail lines that n the end still wouldn't serve many many people anyway.

[WillowTree]

52. Why is a government owned/run train service making any **profit** at all?

[XOKCowboy]

53. It's well run and demand is high?

I'm not sure that I understand your question.

[ColbertWatcher]

57. Volume.

Plus, I suspect it's a measure more of the success of the program than anything else.

[NuttyFluffers]

67. exactly, success of program beat out projections.

business ventures do not (usually) begins with knowledge of the future, including % adoption of usage. so in proposing a model, either creation or upgrade, you have to project a level of success, to be determined by customer usage. this gives you leeway to manage in case of poor results.

apparently it's been a resounding success, so much so that there's a significant level of profit over projections. now this profit can be used to be stored for a "rainy day" in case this success is a temporary boom cycle. or they can reinvest it -- and as much as they want of it -- as they choose in areas needing improvement. but either way, as in the wise words of Martha Stewart, "it's a good thing."

[LostInAnomie]

59. That was my train of thought too (no pun intended).

Governments shouldn't look to profit off their citizens.

I'm sure it's a compromise though. Instead of making their people pay more in taxes they charge them for a service.

[LostInAnomie]

60. Self Delete

Oops

[JustAnotherGen]

56. I love the French

Rail system. Was there three times last year and have already been there once this year. Even just taking the train from Juan Les Pin to Antibes is nice.

You ever driven in the smaller towns/villages in France? Oy. Narrow streets, crazy drivers - the train is the way to go. :-)

[LostInAnomie]

61. Can you imagine how much the free market zealots would howl if Amtrak made profits like that?

They would have their Supreme Court break that up and sell the pieces faster than you could say "Plutocracy".

[XOKCowboy]

63. To the Neocons a gubmint agency turning a profit means....

one of their buddies is getting screwed out of all that money! Privatize it! It can only get better. Look at our banks. Oh wait. Look at the oil industr.. uhh look at the airli.... Never mind.