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SNCF Rapide vs Express - what was the difference?


TEP 60
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12 minutes ago, TEP 60 said:

What was the difference in the rolling stock used between SNCF Rapide and Express trains? Which of those trains were couchette cars used in?

 

You have missed one out - "Direct".

 

My mother, who wrote and illustrated textbooks for teaching French, was confused about this and wrote to SNCF. They did not have a clear answer.

 

However, in broad terms:

Express was usually what in the UK we would think of as semi-fast.

Rapide was faster and with fewer stops.

Direct was the same sort of speed as Rapide but with even fewer stops.

 

Some overnight trains were named and the names included the word Express. 

 

Also, I don't think that any overnight services got mentioned in timetables or on departure boards as Rapide or Direct, possibly because their average speed was too low.

 

Era will also play its part. It was only with the introduction of Corail couchette stock (c1980), that couchette coaches were only used overnight. Prior to that, some trains, especially at peak periods, might include some couchette coaches in day mode. I would not be surprised if Rapide and Direct day time trains occasionally included couchettes in day mode as strengtheners. 

Edited by Joseph_Pestell
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Were at SNCF any trains with couchette and sleeping coaches that run more time then one night (I mean: half day and night or day and night or two nights and day or even more) so the couchette cars were used both in day and night mode? What train category (Express, Rapide or Direct) were those trains if ever were? 

Edited by TEP 60
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12 minutes ago, TEP 60 said:

Were at SNCF any trains with couchette and sleeping coaches that run more time then one night (I mean: day and night or two nights and day or even more) so the couchette cars were used both in day and night mode? What train category (Express, Rapide or Direct) were those trains if ever were? 

This method of operation has been revived recently for somewhere down in the South-West; they apparently got a round-trip to Paris and still had time to clean and service the train before its night run. SNCF stock utilisation is not the most intensive I've encountered.

I first encountered SNCF's system of identifying trains in the mid-1970s, when I caught what was supposedly an 'Express' from Gare du Lyon to Villefranche sur Saone. Never mind 'Intercity', this was 'Inter-Village', stopping at almost every station en-route.

Fast-forward almost two decades, and we discovered that FS used a very similar classification..

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Once again, a specific era would assist replies. Things have evolved a lot since 1938.

 

I think it unlikely that one would find many couchette carriages on day trains classified as Rapide or Direct - unless the train concerned was a relief ("supplementaire"). Until the TGV era, the SNCF has always worked on a basis of just a few trains per day on each route. At busy times, they would lay on relief trains. These would often be formed of older stock including couchette-equipped coaches.

 

Pre-Corail, when the couchettes got painted a different colour (blue/grey), it was fairly difficult to distinguish couchettes from ordinary day coaches apart from the UIC series with the raised roof.

 

Charter trains such as pilgrimages to Lourdes also saw the use of older stock including couchette-equipped vehicles. I may be able to dig out a photo from family albums of the train (20+ coaches) that brought us back from Lourdes to Paris in 1964. I was too young to have detailed knowledge of SNCF rolling stock. But from my recollections, it would have been Bacalan stock. The seats were certainly uncomfortable enough to have been couchettes! 

 

Some of the more remote destinations could result in the couchette carriages being used in a day train to get them back to a main depot for servicing.

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On 15/04/2020 at 09:43, TEP 60 said:

What was the difference in the rolling stock used between SNCF Rapide and Express trains? Which of those trains were couchette cars used in?

 

Couchettes were, naturally enough, mainly to be found on overnight trains or as through coaches on international services which would be overnight beyond France but I've travelled in them on domestic day trains (far less comfortable than normal day coaches)  so they would be included if that''s what was available. 

 

The distinction between Rapides and Expresses (and Directs) has been a fairly perennial source of discussion both within the pages of the French Railways Society Journal and on Forums- LR Presse, the French equivalent to RMWEB. This is mainly because the distinction, commercial rather than operational, varied over time and between regions- with differences often dating back to the former companies. So, If you can tell us what time period and region you're modelling, it may be possible to be more  specific. Some trains went from Rapide to Express in a later timetable with no other difference just a change of classification policy. 

 

In general, the rapides were the "best" trains on a main line and included the prestige trains with class limitations (1st only or 1st & 2nd when there was still 3rd) and those charging supplements - the TEEs were invariably rapides and referred to in the 1971 Chaix as Trains Rapides de Premier Classe (supplément spécial- réservation obligitoire)  but plenty of other rapides carried anybody at standard fares.

In terms of stock it would have been the Rapides that got the best coaches (*** in the bulletin de composition as opposed to * and ** ) so, when they first appeared in the 1950s, it would be rapides that got the DEV Inoxes (as with Le Mistral)  and later the first Corails.

 

Directs - they'd all but disappeared as a classification by the mid 1970s- were shorter distance semi-fast trains so distinct from Omnibuses which were stopping trains  and definitely distinct from Marchandises-Voayageurs (mixed trains) which were classified as goods trains in the rule book.

 

Sorry to have to contradict you Joseph but all my timetables that give trains' classifications- which is almost all of them- do so equally for overnight trains. Omnibuses though were rarely identifed as such, they were just the default though if they were autorails, as eventially most omnibuses were, that WAS usually shown- I think because of limitations on luggage etc,

 

Most overnight trains were expresses but I was surprised to find in Loco-Revue's excellent book covering domestic  (or partly domestic) overnight trains 60ans de Compositions de Trains de Nuit Francais (1950-1920) how  many  overnight rapides there were. These included the Night Ferry (which conveyed domestic day carriages between Dunkerque and Paris Nord as well as the Voitures Lits) and the often named trains from Paris to the Spanish border but there were others such as Rapide 174/175  L'Occitan between Paris-Austerlitz and Toulouse. and Rapide 29 Pyrénées Express from Austerlitz to Tarbes. In 1963, the composition of this train consisted of a BB 9200, a postal bag van going on to Bordeaux (presumably attached to another train and dropping off enroute), a bogie parcels van (newspapers?) ; a four wheel  baggage car (fourgon), a Voiture Lits (going forward to Pau), another four wheel fourgon, six 2nd class DEV B10s,  two  first class DEV A8, two 2nd class DEV B10c10 couchettes, one 1st class OCEM A8c8 couchette, two Voitures Lits, and finally another four wheel fourgon.  

The eighteen vehicles making up this train were by no means an unusual loading and SNCF seemed to believe in 'few but long' trains on its long disance services.

 

From correspondance on Forum L-R  and borne out by  a quick look through the timetables there definitely were differences of tradition between the regions ;

On the North (ex Nord) and West (ex Etat) regions, few trains were classed as rapides,  apart from the supplement charging trains such as the Fleche d'Or,  and even the very quick Paris-Cherbourg Turbotrains  were classed as Express.  The South West (ex PO)  and South East (ex PLM) were far more inclined to classify their long distance fast(ish) trains as Rapides and the  Eastern Region (ex Est and A-L)  came somewhere in between.

 

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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