Even as President Obama wants to build an American high-speed rail network to match the one in France, the French have begun to question the wisdom of their own high-speed rail system. French trains are operated by a government-owned corporation known as SNCF (short for the French translation of National Railway Company of France).
By 1997, building high-speed rail lines had put SNCF €28 billion — about $38 billion in today’s dollars — in debt. Although this debt was backed by the full faith and credit of the French government, it was pretty clear that rail fares would never repay it. Since the European Union requires that member countries not subsidize transport or other things that would give companies in those countries an unfair advantage over those in other members of the EU, in 1997 France separated SNCF into two companies: SNCF would continue to operate trains, while a new company named Réseau Ferré de France (RFF, which translates to French Rail Network) builds and maintains the tracks.
