FRANCE: Le Rail Scandale expose

“Le Scandale National des Chemins de Fer” was Le MONDE’s headline Oct 10 of a rave review of a new book which systematically takes to pieces the case for rail subsidies and exposes the corruption and disregard for the public interest at the root of anti-highway advocacy. Le Monde is the leading serious daily newspaper in France and its positive publicity for the book “Le Rapport Interdit” by Christian Julienne is a serious blow against those wanting to soak motorists to support of megaloss-making rail.

Despite frequent talk of a powerful “road lobby” the book reveals that the real political clout in transport policy comes from heavily-unionised rail interests operating in the context of a positive image of rail inculcated into the French from an early age.

For $42b paid yearly in road and fuel taxes, the French road user receives only $14b in road expenditure, net profit for the French Treasury being US$28b. French annual rail receipts from fares and freight bills are $1.7b, against annual running costs $12b, producing net rail losses of $10b+.

Whose benefit is served by these vast transfers of resources from road to rail, the book asks? Julienne’s answer: the employees and ex-employees of the French National Railways company (SNCF). Most of the money goes to over half a million SNCF people — 180,000 purportedly at work and 350,000 on retirement pensions. The pensions are available as early as age 50, and increasing life expectancy is swelling the costs of the rail company pensions into an enormous ongoing cost. Perks such as free travel for railworkers’ families allow over 2.5 million people to travel the system without payment. The French government has just sunk another $26b into the SNCF just to pay off the company’s debts, run up by its large payroll and its burgeoning pensions.

Julienne points out that rail is currently not competitive, either for the individual user or for the transport of goods. He says that the French, like everyone else, like to drive and need their cars for commuting, personal mobility, flexibility, driving children to school, shopping, and personal freedom: in short, to go where they want, when they want. The famous TGV high-speed rail system is viable only for distances between 250 and 600km, the car offering unbeatable value for trips up to 250 km, and air transport for trips beyond 600km. So inefficient is the socialized freight rail system that each French rail wagon transports a paltry 200 ton-km/day compared with the 1,000 t-km/day regularly carried by even small vans. (A tractor-trailer will commonly run 20,000 t-km/day)

The article scoffs at the fashionable intermodal notion, promoted notably by the Swiss government, of running trucks on trains. This would double the costs of transport because of “idle time” for both trucks and drivers during transfers, as well as heavy investment in purpose-built rolling stock. Le Monde notes that the SNCF itself is aware of the inherent advantages of road transport in Europe and through quiet investment in subsidiaries has become the number one French trucking operator. Intermodal investment!

The Le Monde article is said by the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva to be the the first time that any major media in France has attempted to explode the myths behind rail financing. Many European countries successfully bury the finances of their rail operations deep in government budgeting. Switzerland has reported the disastrous financial results of its rail operations in recent years — losses of $130m/yr. European governments use the vast profits from taxing motorists more than they spend on roads to fund all kinds of government programs, but rail gets a lot. There is no indication that creaming off road profits for transfer to rail will achieve the proclaimed objective of relieving road congestion and reducing air pollution. The writings suggests the road-to-rail financial transfers serve merely to maintain employment and perks in a low-performance, underused and unpopular transport system. The “environment” is raised as cover of respectability and legitimacy for a simple “scam” on the public. (Contact Sandra Woods IRF@dial.eunet.ch)