SNCF main business of the SNCF Group, which in 2017 had €33.5 billion of sales in 120 countries. The SNCF Group employs more than 260,000 people. Since July 2013, the SNCF Group headquarters are located in a Parisian suburb at 2 Place aux Étoiles in Saint-Denis. The President of the SNCF Group is Guillaume Pepy. SNCF operates almost all of France's railway system, including the TGV ("Train à Grande Vitesse", meaning "High-speed train"). In the 1970s, the SNCF began the TGV high-speed train programme with the intention of creating the world's fastest railway network. It came to fruition in 1981, when
SNCF Class BB 8500 SNCF Class BB 8500 The SNCF Class BB 8500 class are part of a series of electric locomotives built by Alsthom for SNCF. They are the direct current version of the 25 kV alternating current SNCF BB 17000 and dual system SNCF BB 25500. The locomotives are fitted with monomotor bogies with two different gear ratios. This allows them to increase their tractive effort in exchange for a reduction in their top speed. This makes them suitable for both freight and passenger trains. They acquired the nickname "Danseuses" (dancers) due to their tendency to sway from side to side at