Privatise the railways? Nationalise the railways? Non, merci.

The most convenient airport for our recent holiday in France was Geneva. Which, it probably hasn’t escaped your notice, is actually in Switzerland.

However, the Swiss and French have come to an excellent arrangement, by which a part of the station in Geneva is made available to the French railways (the SNCF). So we bought our tickets on-line in England, and travelled out bearing the SNCF’s e-mail instructions about printing out our tickets at the machine in the station.

Only to discover that the station boasted no such machine.

“But it says here…,” we protested.

“Ah, yes,” we were told by a Swiss railway official, “but this is Switzerland. The SNCF doesn’t have one of those machines on Swiss territory.”

“So – what do we do?”

“You could go to the SNCF ticket office around the corner.”

“But it’s Saturday. That office isn’t open on a Saturday.”

“Ah,” said the lady, trying to look helpful. And then shook her head. “I shouldn’t like to be in your position,” she commiserated. Which, when it comes to helpfulness, fell rather short of the mark.

So we decided to get on the train anyway. I’ve had experience dealing with French ticket collectors in the past, and it’s always proved a great deal more satisfactory than dealing with machines. And, indeed, we saw two collectors on the platform, even before the train had left the station.

“No problem,” they told us, “get on the train and we’ll come and see you once we’re on our way.”

And one of them did. In fact, he sorted out our tickets in about two minutes, and then sat down to chat with us for a further twenty or so.

He had plenty to chat about.

“It was such a pleasure,” I told him, “to find a human being to sort out the problem with our tickets.”

“Well, yes. Enjoy it while you can. It’s not going to last.”

It seems that SNCF staff numbers have been falling for years. In 2003, there were 178,260 employees; by last year numbers were down to 149,500. The French newspaper Le Figaro claims another 1400 jobs are due to go this year.

The worst of it is that salary costs haven’t even fallen. Apparently, they went up by 1.289 billion euros between 2003 and 2013. Wage increases have contributed to the rise, but the other factor has been the decision to increase the proportion of managers – where there were 6.8 employees per manager in 2003, ten years on there were only 4.2.

“Too many managers,” our ticket collector complained, “we’re the most managed industry in France. And all they demand of us is – profits. Forget the service.”

He was pretty bitter. And I have to say, I was a little annoyed with managers who couldn’t manage to provide a ticket machine at Geneva, even though their own instructions told us to use one.

The message, as we sat on our slightly threadbare seats, or used the less than appealing toilets (still providing a hole onto the track…) seemed clear. Even the SNCF, the much-vaunted, nationalised French railway service, has fallen on hard times. Its service to passengers is declining and, more spectacularly still, it’s failing its staff. While it’s as obsessed with generating a profit as any private organisation might be.

Ticket Collector on a French regional train
Not quite the same service as the TGV. And the staff are under threat

Now I’m back in Britain, with our privatised services. So privatised that even after two companies failed on the East Coast service, and a nationalised organisation succeeded spectacularly, the government re-privatised the lines. It seems ideology demands private ownership, for Tories, just as it demands nationalisation for certain areas of the left.

Whereas to me, looking at what’s happening in France, I’d have to say it’s the great non-issue.

What matters is how you treat your customers. How you treat your staff. How you invest for the future. Whether it’s a privatised service or a public one is insignificant in comparison. Treat people decently and provide a good service and the rest doesn’t matter. Britain and France demonstrate that you can do just as badly on those truly important issues, whether you have a private or nationalised system.

Still, all that being said, the SNCF has the edge on the railways in Britain in one crucial area. I told our friendly ticket collector how much I pay for my season ticket into London. He whistled.

“That’s four times as much, per kilometre, as it would cost over here,” he told me, astonished.

Ah, yes. Now that is an area where Britain could try to compete a little more seriously with France. Fares closer to the French level? Why, yes please. That would do very nicely, thanks. In a privatised or nationalised service.

With sufficient faith and a good enough cause, you can ride the ghost train

Italo Calvino describes a scene in which Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks, is reviewing his knights, one by one. Each raises his visor when the King stops in front of him, then gives his name and a few details of his command or his past victories.

Until Charlemagne draws up in front of one knight whose armour is immaculate, without a scratch on it, nor a trace of dirt. But the visor remains shut despite the King’s greeting.

‘You, Paladin!’ insists Charlemagne, ‘why do you not show your face to your king?’

Clear and strong the voice emerges from inside the helmet. ‘Because I don’t exist, sire.’

‘Now there’s a thing!’ exclaims the Emperor. ‘Now we even have a knight in our ranks who doesn’t exist! And how do you serve if you’re not there?’

‘By the force of willpower and by faith in our holy cause!’

Italo Calvino who wrote The Nonexistent Knight
A genial and humorous approach to the deepest aspects of life

Now my cause, unlike the one for which Charlemagne led his men in The Nonexistent Knight may not have been holy: with my wife, I was joining my brother and my sister-out-law for a week’s skiing in the French Alps.

Not, not really all that sacred, I can hear you exclaiming.

Maybe not. But it was the first time my brother and I had been on holiday together for four decades. I mean, we’d visited each other and all that, but we hadn’t travelled together to some other place since the early seventies. Even if it falls short of holiness, that surely makes our endeavour a good cause at least. One that deserves a little faith.

As our two parties converged on our destination, it became clear that their train would be stopping at Chambéry where we were waiting for a connection. So why not take the same train for the last leg?

It seemed a good idea until an official at Chambéry station told us there was no such train. I rang my brother again.

‘We’re on it,’ he assured me. ‘It stops at Chambéry at 15:03.’

We tried another official. Same answer. In fact, this one took me over to look at the printed timetable. He was right, there was no train to our destination at 15:03 or indeed at any time before the one we were waiting for, an hour and a half away.

‘Maybe you can only get on the train if you have a reservation,’ Danielle suggested.

So we went into the ticket office to try and buy reservations.

‘My computer doesn’t even show the train,’ the friendly woman behind the counter told us.

It was time for an act of faith.

We went and stood on the platform where we guessed the train would have pulled in if it had existed. And, a little late but nonetheless bearing all the tangible signs of reality, in time a train turned up. A high-speed train, the famous French TGV, no less. Carriage doors opened and at one of them appeared my brother, with a welcoming grin and wave to invite us aboard. He introduced us to a ticket collector as though she were an old friend.

It seems so solid, a TGV in the snow by night
And yet it may be a ghost train

‘This is my brother and sister-in-law, the ones I told you about. They can join the train, can’t they?’

‘Only if they have the willpower and the faith to make it exist against the denials of all around them. If they have will of great strength and a cause sufficiently good, they can defy natural laws and railway timetables. Then they may certainly join us.’

Actually, I think I made that last bit up. But what’s certain is that we travelled the last stage of our journey with my brother and sister-out-law. And as a result we arrived a good hour earlier than expected.

Quite sufficient justification to raise a glass to the spirit of Italo Calvino that evening.