For the first time since owning the house in France we have decided to catch the train from our local station at Questembert. The station is about 12km from Malestroit and is on the main line between Vannes (population 50,000), Redon (population 10,000) and Nantes (population 280,000) a journey of, if you catch a fast train, about one hour and twenty minutes from Vannes to Nantes. It is fair to say that SNCF have a fairly erratic timetable, one that makes no sense to someone who has been involved in the UK railways for twenty seven years, and one that seems to serve no market very well at all.

Take our journey today, the trains we could have caught to Nantes were either at 0735, with a change at Redon, arriving at 0853, or then the 1144 departure direct to Nantes arriving at 1250. Although this latter service does not operate on the 1st or the 13th of September for no reason that seems obvious. The next service to Nantes would be, if you happened to want to travel on the 25th September or after the 29th September (but not the 10th November) at around 1355 and after that there is a 1444 (Friday only sevice) followed by a 1641 service. It certainly makes you appreciate the regular pattern services that we have in the UK - miss a train in France and then your day is well and truly scuppered!

It is not like the train is empty either, the 1144 was full and standing on arrival at Questembert and remained that way through to Nantes. So, it seems as though the trains are well used and if there were a few more of them could be even better patronised overall but a casual glimpse at the timetable shows all sorts of gaps in services that must make planning your day fairly hard going whether you are trying to commute to or from work or fancy a leisure trip elsewhere.

Coming back is not much better either with a train at 1520 from Nantes arriving at Questembert at 1618, and the next departure at 1620 (although Monday to Thursday only), with a change at Redon arriving at 1820 or 1724 Nantes changing at Redon arriving at 1900, if we had made the journey on a Friday then we could have caught the 1809 direct service from Nantes arriving into Questembert at 1908.

The glamour of the TGV services in France, which are held in high esteem as a good example of railway operations, are really the gloss on a rather dull offereing elsewhere in what is not really rural France but a conurbation of fairly large towns or cities that would, in the case of the UK be linked by at least an hourly service.

Just think about it the next time you want to catch a train from Lincoln to Leicester via Nottingham, or Birmingham to Sheffield via Derby - UK rail is actually not that bad!