French equivalent to real time trains?

[SNCF stephen]

Hello

 

I am just wondering if there is a French equivalent to Real Time Trains that I would be able to use when I visit France in a few weeks? I want to know if it is worth hanging around for Freights or other unusual trains. I normally leave t to chance with mixed results so it would be nice to be in the know.

 

Many thanks

 

Stephen

[Metr0Land]

AFAIK the answer is no.

 

There's this from SNCF but it's passenger only.

 

http://www.sncf.com/fr/geolocalisation

[Fat Controller]

My French friends have long been envious of firstly Freightmaster, and now Real-Time Trains, saying that they had no such resource available to them. Where a photo-site gives chapter and verse about train identities in France, it's usually because someone with SNCF connections is involved, and has checked the Train Register.

[SNCF stephen]

Thanks for the input. Sadly the link provided in the first reply is not working.

 

Hopefully the situation will improve but I get the impression that the sncf keep their cards a bit closer to their chest than the British Railways.

[Focalplane]

Along the Midi main line from Sete to Narbonne there does seem to be some degree of predictability for freights, partly because they have to fit in with the passenger service timetable. At my old viewpoint near Nissan I could predict certain trains with some success. Container freights to/from Spain, wood pulp trains, tanker trains all had some sort of timetable but sadly it is not in the public domain.

[phil-b259]

Thanks for the input. Sadly the link provided in the first reply is not working.

 

Hopefully the situation will improve but I get the impression that the sncf keep their cards a bit closer to their chest than the British Railways.

 

You have to remember that while the British Government have embraced openness and free market principles* when it comes to railways the converse is true in France where their 'establishment' has done everything possible to keep others out of what they regard as things that should be the sole preserve of SNCF (which is basically anything to do with railways). As such I wouldn't expect anything like the same amount of timetable data to be available in France as there is in the UK for the foreseeable future.

 

* NR, as a public sector body have been told by HM Government they must provide the raw data regarding train positions, as derived from signal box train describers to any organisation that wants it (with the only exception that freight train descriptions may be randomised for security reasons). I doubt the same attitude is present in Paris