SNCF SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF, "French National Railway Company") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffic along with Monaco, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network. Its functions include operation of railway services for passengers and freight, and maintenance and signalling of rail infrastructure. The railway network consists of about of route, of which are high-speed lines and electrified. About 14,000 trains are operated daily. In 2010 the SNCF was ranked 22nd in France and 214th globally on the Fortune Global 500 list. It is the
SNCF Class BB 20004 SNCF Class BB 20004 The SNCF class BB 20004 locomotive was a dual-voltage test-bed locomotive transformed from the damaged BB16540 in 1959. After the end of its test period in 1969 it was reinstated with its original equipment under its original number BB16540. SNCF had already experimented with three other dual-voltage locomotives in the 1950s, but these were all rebuilt from a DC locomotive and could only deliver their full power under 25 kV. Power output under 1.5 kV was reduced to 10% of the full power which is nearly negligible. This was however no real problem, as these locomotives