Continental rail systems

Author: Patrick Crozier

I am not a great expert on the rail systems of the continent. This is as much as I know:

General

most trains on the continent are bigger and more spacious. This is because they have a larger loading gauge (the cross-sectional area). As I understand it this is entirely a product of Britain building its railway first. Incidentally, I understand that the Channel Tunnel Rail Link will be built to the higher standard and in future (proper) TGVs will be able to run directly from Paris to London
train operators in the EU (with, I think, the exception of the Republic of Ireland) have had to separate operations from infrastructure in accordance with EU Directive 91/440.

Nationalised in its entirety. Vertically fragmented in accordance with EU Directive 91/440 in the mid-1990s with RFF providing the infrastructure and SNCF operating the trains. Both sides still owned by the French state.
Huge debts, RFF has €26.7bn (£18bn) in 2004, while SNCF has about €7bn (£4.7bn). SNCF also has an annual subsidy of €1.5bn (£1bn) a year. The combined debt is much higher than in the UK - though Network Rail is catching up fast. The subsidy is much lower.
Lovely, fast TGVs on most of the main routes
Great Paris Metro
Other services tend not to be so great. I have personal experience of this finding myself trapped in Switzerland. On the way back we spent ten minutes stopped at the station because the guard had forgotten to ring the bell.
Low fares in comparison to the UK

Slowly being contracted out on a model similar to that in the UK. Before that nationalised
Some very nice high-speed trains
I have no idea about the financial situation, though it sounds bad
Reasonable suburban and regional services
Low fares
Serious graffiti problem
I experienced some overcrowding

Contracted out on an even more fragmented model than in the UK but didn't privatise. Before then nationalised
Result: chaos and resignations
Plastic seats everywhere (in my experience). Do the Dutch have better padded posteriors?

Nationalised
Gets rave reviews: clean, punctual, frequent
I don't know what the financial situation is. I tried to look it up once but all the info was in French and German. Implication seemed to be that the subsidy was quite low. (It is, as of 2004, about 28% of total revenue). That is about the same as British Rail before privatisation.
High fares
It is being contracted out in accordance with EU directive 91/440. Although Switzerland is not part of the EU, it has for many years incorporated EU legislation into it's own (European Economic Area?) 2002 chat with a Swiss railwayman: he said there were some rivalries beginning to emerge but it was all a bit too early to tell.

According to Carlo Pfund, EU directive 91/440 does not appear to have done anyone any good. The amount of harm seems to be related to the amount of fragmentation and the density of services.

This is a stub and will be expanded later (I hope). Please feel free to suggest improvements.