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 141R SNCF Class 141R The SNCF 141 R is a class of 2-8-2 steam locomotives of the " Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français" (French State Railways). They were used all over the French rail network from 1945–1974. At the end of World War II, there was a shortage of locomotives, and to quickly obtain the large number needed locomotives were ordered from the main American and Canadian locomotive builders under the Lend-Lease Program (and not the Marshall Plan, signed in April 1948, as often written). The design was based on the Green Bay & Western Railroad's successfully customised Mikados,