ATTENTION AUX TRAINS ! VOYAGEZ EN TOUTE SÉCURITÉ SUR LE RÉSEAU FERROVIAIRE EN FRANCE

The problem of the presence of unwanted people on the tracks is very old, as it has already arisen for major roads. The first railways established over long distances and traveled by steam trains were considered as true public promenades. As with today's high-speed lines, the concern to fence the railway lines became necessary given the abundance of walkers of all kinds along the tracks, passing horse-drawn carriages traveling with two wheels between the rails and two wheels outside. The law of July 15, 1845 on railway policing required companies to fence all lines, on both sides and along their entire length. It would take at least a decade for the lines to be completely returned to train traffic only. Mechanical signaling, which began its evolution towards unification for all networks in 1885, is now at the heart of the problem of operational safety, and, as the only weak link in the mechanical chain of safety, man, and more specifically the signalman and the lampman who illuminates the signals at night, can only prove his usefulness by obeying the signals in a manner as immediate as it is passive: he is, from now on, a part, nothing but a part, of a heavy mechanism which is safe because it is almost entirely material and as little human as possible. Only a few safety devices such as the interlocks and locks of the signal boxes can help him and protect him from the consequences of the heavy responsibility which will crush him in the event of…. But, with the automatic block by track circuits, electricity is finally recognized, while the automation of signal boxes with systems which can, by their motive power, replace the muscular strength of the signalman, will be the last great progress, generalized in the aftermath of the Second World War. Today, the workforce is about half that of the former companies combined, but productivity has more than doubled, and trains are heavier and much faster. According to the Annual Report on Rail Traffic Safety for 2013: of the 85 people who, sadly, died on the French rail network, 45 were "unauthorized" persons, 29 were (unwitting) users of level crossings, four were passengers, and most importantly, three SNCF staff members. The safety of rail network personnel, therefore, has improved about 100-fold since the interwar years, and as for the old 19th-century networks, only a long and difficult search would reveal figures that, at the time, were preferred to be kept secret. They were not meant to be shown, and today we can say that the railway is technically a very secure place. Photo: Stamping of the 67322 at Vierzon station in 1968 http://www.michelchevalet.com