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
Southern Railway (UK) London Bridge. Southern is owned by Govia — a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead Group and Keolis (a SNCF subsidiary) — which also owns the neighbouring "Southeastern". Officially named "Southern Railway Ltd", it was branded "Southern" on 30 May 2004, recalling the pre-nationalisation Southern Railway, with a green roundel logo with "Southern" written in yellow in a green bar. The Southern railway covered a large territory in south-west England including Weymouth, Plymouth, Salisbury and Exeter, where it was in competition with the Great Western Railway (GWR). To the east of this area it held a monopoly of rail services