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 232.Q.1 SNCF 232.Q.1 The SNCF 232.Q.1 was an experimental prototype steam locomotive of the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) which entered service in 1940. It was Baltic or 4-6-4 locomotive. The locomotive was ordered on 9 March 1936 by the Société nationale des chemins de fer français in an attempt to solve the problem of the crankshaft which limited, in part, the speed of the locomotive and its inherent dynamic augment or hammer blow. The order for its construction was placed with the firm of Schneider et Cie. It was decided to equip the locomotive with a conventional