5 ms·

> It doesn't need to open up the network to competition. I think this is mandated by the EU. And it could be a good thing. I'm personally fed up to be treated

> It doesn't need to open up the network to competition. I think this is mandated by the EU. And it could be a good thing. I'm personally fed up to be treated like a thief when I forgot composting my ticket (which happen because there is not gate to access the rails) or when I could not buy it in the first place (some station doesn't have have vending machines). Also the price lottery for TGV tickets is infuriating (price goes from 14€ to 140€ for the ride I take the most) and the commercial strategy of the SNCF is to offer cheap TGV which lacks any confort to kind of punish you not buying the more expensive option. But actually I would even be happier if we import all the working staff from Japan and make them the whole thing working smoothly under a join JR-France company.

ambicapter 8y ago
For english speakers, "composting" here means punching a ticket. I never understood where the word came from, and I'm a native French speaker.
- bane 8y ago
  Wow, thanks for that. I can't find a definition in an English dictionary that was able to make sense of that. It appears to have etymology in Old French composte which comes from Latin "composita" or "compositum" which means something like "something put together". Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil...but I can arrive at how we got to "composite" which seems to have different but similar roots.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    > Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil... The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.
    - bane 8y ago
      Ahh, that makes sense.
- niea_11 8y ago
  Apparently the meaning doesn't come from the verb but from the italian word : "compositore" (according to wikitionary [1] and the larousse dictionary [2]) (again in [1]) "compositore" from italian is equivalent to "compositeur" in french which can mean "a person that writes music" but can also mean "a typographer or compositor". [1] : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur [2] : https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17760 https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17...
  - carlob 8y ago
    Funnily enough the word we use for stamping tickets in Italian is vidimare which comes from vidimus (seen) in Latin, so it's actually closer to visa in etymology.
- titanix2 8y ago
  Thanks for having filled the "exercice left to the reader" as I didn't know the correct word!
- magduf 8y ago
  For ESL speakers, "composting" to us means "put in a bin with a bunch of dead vegetation and let it rot". It can also refer to throwing something away in a bin that is destined for a compost pile (for instance, food scraps). I was wondering why the OP would be treated like a thief for not throwing his ticket away to be composted.
glandium 8y ago
The JR service comes at a cost. Shinkansen tickets are vastly more expensive than TGV.
- titanix2 8y ago
  Yes it's a bit more expensive but the trains themselves are way more confortable, most of the time on schedule and drive at full operational speed all the time because they rails are made for it. With TGV on the other hand you have a few sections which are standard rails and thus you the train drive at a normal (low) speed...
  - mcv 8y ago
    More comfortable than the TGV? The train I'm most familiar with is the Thalys, the high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, and I'm not sure if it's more comfortable than other TGVs, but it's always a joy to travel in. I recently went to London in the Eurostar, and they'd managed to make the train experience feel like a plane. Very disappointing.
    - kmlx 8y ago
      Having recently used both the TGV and the Tokaido Shinkansen, I'd say the Hikari line is much more comfortable than any of the TGV trains. Regarding the Eurostar, it works like that because the UK is not in Schengen. As such, border control needs to happen. Not to mention the potential issues with terrorism. And the Eurostar is net inferior to any of the Shinkansen trains.
      - mcv 8y ago
        The border checks absolutely added to the plane feeling of the experience, but Eurostar seats are also significantly more cramped than those of the Thalys.
      - GordonS 8y ago
        Can confirm, I've been on the TGV and also a few bullet trains in Japan - the bullet trains were practically luxurious in terms of comfort and space, and the service was fantastic. I also found the bullet trains to be great value, especially when compared to the expensive, uncomfortable, over-crowded, slow, dirty, late trains here in the UK.
isostatic 8y ago
> I think this is mandated by the EU. Not really, the EU is democratic, and generally there's skeptisism in the EU about a liberal rail market. The Fourth Railway Package explicity allows tracks and trains to be owned by a single holding company. The main point of the package was things like harmonising safety standards across europe (so if you wanted to run a train from london to warsaw you wouldn't need to get safety certification from UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Poland). It will mean that a given EU government can't use the rail industry as a way of hiding state aid to people/industries. If SNCF are good, that's fine, they continue. If DB come along and say they can run France's network for half the cost, then DB get the job. > I'm personally fed up to be treated like a thief when I forgot composting my ticket That's because you're not traveling with a valid ticket. Try driving off from the petrol station without paying, or boarding a plane without showing a boarding pass. > Also the price lottery for TGV tickets is infuriating It's demand led, like planes. > the commercial strategy of the SNCF is to offer cheap TGV which lacks any confort to kind of punish you not buying the more expensive option. So buy the more expensive one if you value the comfort.
- cowl 8y ago
  >That's because you're not travelling with a valid ticket. Try driving off from the petrol station without paying, or boarding a plane without showing a boarding pass. that's not even remotely close. I don't know exactly how it is in France but in Italy (and I suspect it's similar) I may have a monthly ticket clearly stating the validity FROM-TO, having my name on it and yet still if i don't time stamp it at the start of month i'm treated like a thief because bureaucracy says ALL tickets must be timestamped. WHY? how could i cheat with a named monthly subscription ticked? Ticket controllers not having to fear for their job don't even try to think and treat passengers with respect. Now that we have a private Operator the situation is a little bit better but still until we have laws that dictate nobody must do any effort to maintain the job it's not gonna be pretty. Now You may ask Why I don't simply time stamp it at the start of the month. Maybe i'm late and I miss my train But most of the time and in many stations the stamping machines do not work. courtesy of the same guaranteed monopoly Company.
  - 8y ago

ambicapter 8y ago

For english speakers, "composting" here means punching a ticket. I never understood where the word came from, and I'm a native French speaker.

bane 8y ago
Wow, thanks for that. I can't find a definition in an English dictionary that was able to make sense of that. It appears to have etymology in Old French composte which comes from Latin "composita" or "compositum" which means something like "something put together". Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil...but I can arrive at how we got to "composite" which seems to have different but similar roots.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  > Even crazier I can't figure out how we arrive at the modern meaning of decaying vegetables to make soil... The etymology I see all mentions "composte" as "mixture of leaves, manure, etc., for fertilizing land", which suggests that it started as people using a *composita of manure and plant detritus together to ferment for fertilizer and the word sense shifted from referring to the specific mixture to the general composting process.
  - bane 8y ago
    Ahh, that makes sense.
niea_11 8y ago
Apparently the meaning doesn't come from the verb but from the italian word : "compositore" (according to wikitionary [1] and the larousse dictionary [2]) (again in [1]) "compositore" from italian is equivalent to "compositeur" in french which can mean "a person that writes music" but can also mean "a typographer or compositor". [1] : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur [2] : https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17760 https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/composteur/17...
- carlob 8y ago
  Funnily enough the word we use for stamping tickets in Italian is vidimare which comes from vidimus (seen) in Latin, so it's actually closer to visa in etymology.
titanix2 8y ago
Thanks for having filled the "exercice left to the reader" as I didn't know the correct word!
magduf 8y ago
For ESL speakers, "composting" to us means "put in a bin with a bunch of dead vegetation and let it rot". It can also refer to throwing something away in a bin that is destined for a compost pile (for instance, food scraps). I was wondering why the OP would be treated like a thief for not throwing his ticket away to be composted.

glandium 8y ago

The JR service comes at a cost. Shinkansen tickets are vastly more expensive than TGV.

titanix2 8y ago
Yes it's a bit more expensive but the trains themselves are way more confortable, most of the time on schedule and drive at full operational speed all the time because they rails are made for it. With TGV on the other hand you have a few sections which are standard rails and thus you the train drive at a normal (low) speed...
- mcv 8y ago
  More comfortable than the TGV? The train I'm most familiar with is the Thalys, the high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, and I'm not sure if it's more comfortable than other TGVs, but it's always a joy to travel in. I recently went to London in the Eurostar, and they'd managed to make the train experience feel like a plane. Very disappointing.
  - kmlx 8y ago
    Having recently used both the TGV and the Tokaido Shinkansen, I'd say the Hikari line is much more comfortable than any of the TGV trains. Regarding the Eurostar, it works like that because the UK is not in Schengen. As such, border control needs to happen. Not to mention the potential issues with terrorism. And the Eurostar is net inferior to any of the Shinkansen trains.
    - mcv 8y ago
      The border checks absolutely added to the plane feeling of the experience, but Eurostar seats are also significantly more cramped than those of the Thalys.
    - GordonS 8y ago
      Can confirm, I've been on the TGV and also a few bullet trains in Japan - the bullet trains were practically luxurious in terms of comfort and space, and the service was fantastic. I also found the bullet trains to be great value, especially when compared to the expensive, uncomfortable, over-crowded, slow, dirty, late trains here in the UK.

isostatic 8y ago

> I think this is mandated by the EU. Not really, the EU is democratic, and generally there's skeptisism in the EU about a liberal rail market. The Fourth Railway Package explicity allows tracks and trains to be owned by a single holding company. The main point of the package was things like harmonising safety standards across europe (so if you wanted to run a train from london to warsaw you wouldn't need to get safety certification from UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Poland). It will mean that a given EU government can't use the rail industry as a way of hiding state aid to people/industries. If SNCF are good, that's fine, they continue. If DB come along and say they can run France's network for half the cost, then DB get the job. > I'm personally fed up to be treated like a thief when I forgot composting my ticket That's because you're not traveling with a valid ticket. Try driving off from the petrol station without paying, or boarding a plane without showing a boarding pass. > Also the price lottery for TGV tickets is infuriating It's demand led, like planes. > the commercial strategy of the SNCF is to offer cheap TGV which lacks any confort to kind of punish you not buying the more expensive option. So buy the more expensive one if you value the comfort.

cowl 8y ago
>That's because you're not travelling with a valid ticket. Try driving off from the petrol station without paying, or boarding a plane without showing a boarding pass. that's not even remotely close. I don't know exactly how it is in France but in Italy (and I suspect it's similar) I may have a monthly ticket clearly stating the validity FROM-TO, having my name on it and yet still if i don't time stamp it at the start of month i'm treated like a thief because bureaucracy says ALL tickets must be timestamped. WHY? how could i cheat with a named monthly subscription ticked? Ticket controllers not having to fear for their job don't even try to think and treat passengers with respect. Now that we have a private Operator the situation is a little bit better but still until we have laws that dictate nobody must do any effort to maintain the job it's not gonna be pretty. Now You may ask Why I don't simply time stamp it at the start of the month. Maybe i'm late and I miss my train But most of the time and in many stations the stamping machines do not work. courtesy of the same guaranteed monopoly Company.
- 8y ago