TER train ticket attendants were extremely rude and sadistic on the route between Menton and Cannes. These men seem to enjoy humiliating and embarrassing international visitors. I had purchased two tickets through the app and screen shot the QR codes as I have no local access to wifi. The train attendants refused to scan the codes from my phone and made a spectacle on the train. They tauntEd and humiliated me. They insisted that I open the SNCF app which was impossible due to lack of wifi. Eventually a third employee arrived and continued the bullying. Eventually he took the time to scan the QR codes and found them adequate. The trio turned and left without an apology. These employees show a complete lack of civility and respect. I hope SNCF and TER management can hold the workers to a higher standard In the future. read more

I bought a ticket online and they sent a receipt but no cr code or seat. So at the turnstile I tried desperately to download their app. Failed. Sncf app has serious problems. Luckily the conductor checked my name but seriously is this necessary? They don't have their act together. read more

Here is a list of events about the trains of the SNCF that I've experienced in the past 10 years: -I once fell of the train because it stopped like 45 seconds in a town in Loire et Cher, the contrôleur didn't bother to check if anyone was getting off the train before he blew the whistle, I had 2 suitcases, a backpack and a bag as I recently arrived to France, the first one I had just put on the ground and as I was starting to get off the train with the rest of my luggage, it started moving, it was to late to back up or even jump, I fell forward, one of my bags staying in the train. I feel lucky I wasn't injured as I was only a few inches away from the moving train laying on the ground, one of my bags destroyed with my clothes lying on the tracks. -I once got off the wrong station, when I realized my mistake the train left, (it stopped for around 30s this time), as this was in the middle of nowhere (a totally deserted station) I had to walk along the rails for almost 6 hours to get home. -'Les contrôleurs' (ticket collectors) would make me pay for not having the discount card with me (12-25) -sometimes I would forget as it was a big card that is difficult to carry inside a wallet-, not only I would have to buy a new ticket entirely (instead of just completing the full fair), I would also have to pay a fine at THEIR discretion. meaning I would sometimes pay 100 extra euros. - I was once traveling with my girlfriend and a guy and his girlfriend were sitting in our place, we kindly ask them to let us sit in our seats, they would not move, we asked politely again, the train was mostly full an those were OUR seats, at this moment the guy starts becoming insulting, the 'contrôleur' strolls by, we explain the situation, he gives one look at the couple and literary turns away, almost running... What a wimp! They are not afraid to charge you ridiculous amounts of money but when they have to do enforce their duty, they run away, SHAME ON THEM! -I recently witnessed a Russian tourist who did not speak a single word of french being worried about missing his stop on the train, indeed he had climbed into the part of the train that was not supposed to stop at his station, instead of helping him, the 'contrôleur' gave him a fine!!! And made him pay as if he was going all the way to Paris! And he had to force the door open at the station in the middle of France to actually get out! The disrespect for travelers is blatant and makes me wonder if it denotes something in french culture. Moebius once made a comic strip parody of tourist hunters, I'm thinking the SNCF thinks the same way, they will hunt for the travelers wallet! I've had tickets that I couldn't use and that I lost because the person at the train station wouldn't find the ticket number reference on their system to change the departure time. There is no one else to turn to as the SNCF has closed down costumer service in Gare du Nord in Paris and in Lille! Unfortunately, there are no other alternatives to SNCF. The other option would be to rent a car but still you wouldn't benefit from the speed of the TGV (the only reason why there is 1 star in this review). French citizens, REVOLT! Travelers, you have been warned! read more

SNCF - Direction Générale et Services Centraux - Public Transportation Near Me - Saint-Denis, 75

At the end of August, I took a ticket in Paris-Bercy gare station for the Clermont-Ferrand train and paid 60 euros for first class , I just had 10min to get into the train. I saw the train for Clermont-Ferrand on the screen and ran to the track number the train was in. There were no train number on the screen nor on the train itself, the customer is supposed to guess this is the right train...I asked an employee on the dock and he didn't know. I looked for few minutes but the smell of human wastes on the track was giving me nausea so I jumped into the train. After half an hour, a controller (agent DJ079)asked me the ticket and told this wasn't' the right train, and that I took the TER instead of the SNCF train going to the same destination at the same time. He asked to pay another ticket of 60 euros. There were another guy on the opposite isle of the same ethnicity without ticket and he did not say anything. I stopped by the SNCF desk and asked a refund but the employee said I would have to submit a request through their website and there likely no chance to get refunded. I just hope that SNCF will be restructured, this is a long time due. read more

Let me start with the positive aspects of SNCF. When the company is not striking, you can go anywhere within France easily. Now, it's expensive unless one buys his or her ticket ahead of time. They have tons of programs that are a headache to understand. The lack of customer service is horrifying. Their customer service line is not free. The best way to travel in Europe is with a travel pass but unfortunately SNCF does not have matching schedule with other train companies. It is pretty good with ICE to Belgium, Germany, Holland and England but it sucks royally with Southern Europe. Another way to travel is by air. Try an airline such as easyjet or ryanair. They are fairly inexpensive but don't expect awesome service. You will get there fast and cheap. Well I like to travel by train because of the scenery. well you can visit www.sncf.fr and www.sncf.com Good luck, you need it! read more

We rode the high speed train from Paris to Nimes in about 4 hours. If you like trains, the SNCF is very cool; it's an exciting looking train: purpose build for low aerodynamic drag and extremely powerful looking. It's a behemoth! Getting on was easy as was finding seats and we arrived on time. It attains speeds approaching 320 km/h, approximately 200 mph. Very comfortable : Our tickets were for seated travel and you can carry on a pleasant conversation at nearly 200 mph - Amazing! Once outside of Paris, sit by the window and explore the beautiful French country side. Enjoy some Cognac ! see tip #1 below. About 20 minutes from the destination you will notice the train start to slow down; then you will recall that the train was travelling at nearly 200 mph, that is over 3 miles per minute!!! in 5 minutes you have gone 15 miles, so it takes about 20 minutes to gradually slow down. Consequently, the last 20 minutes of the train ride seemed so slow! Seating: fine; it's ok to move around if you prefer. Tip: 1.) there is a bar located on one of the train cars. 2.)And the cheapest tickets are for standing room only; you stand in the luggage area. but you save cash. This review is from my 2007 trip to France. read more

Horrible customer non-service. In a country of 10% unemployment the well-payed early-retirement SNCF workers are constantly going on strike. J'en ai marre avec les greves de SNCF!! Plus the ticket machines often don't work. And everywhere you look there are long lines of bewildered patrons. read more

I took the SNCF train from Paris to Reims. I think you would be better off to purchase your ticket on-line in advance if your trip to ensure you have a seat. (Check cancellation policies if you miss your train.) After I finally found the SNCF ticket office at Gare de l' Est, the reservation/ticket agent was helpful. The train track is not posted until :20 prior to your scheduled departure. I purchased a first class seat. The train car/cabin was not particularly clean. The seat was comfortable. I had wifi and a power outlet. For the total cost of my round trip ticket, I didn't feel I got much besides the transportation. A SNCF app is available. You can view schedules and also order and pay for food on-line at www.lebartgv.sncf.com. The TGV prices are high and you may want to consider air travel even within France. You just have to weigh the hassle of the airport with the price of your train ticket. Your tickets will be cheaper if you book tickets directly on line versus other online services such as Rail Europe. You can also purchase a discount card which will give you 25% off all train fares for a year which may be helpful if you use the trains often. read more

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This train company has terrible customer service. Agents are unwilling to help. Train stations are poorly labeled. People cannot answer basic questions such as when a train will leave or what line. read more

Terrible customer service. Employees could care less about your experience. I asked what platform my train was on and they said you could look it up on the screen yourself. Thanks for nothing sncf. You should really consider taking a lesson in hospitality. read more

Really ????!!! Are you telling me that in the year 2013 these guys have yet to discover print at home tickets ? I ordered a trip to France for my holidays on sncf.com thinking I was buying a print at home ticket...because one would think this is why you buy over the net, so you don't have to queue at a station..... WRONG ! What they are actually selling you (without proper warning and no other alternative, as if this was perfectly standard) is a ticket that you have to go and pick up. At a station. IN FRANCE !!! Are you kidding me ???? Tried to call these guys to cancel....after cycling through countless menus they just hang up on you. This happened 3x. After 40 mins I give up. I now see that you can have these tickets shipped to an sncf "office" abroad where you then can have the privilege to come pick them up yourself. For the price of 10£ !!! Seriously. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised of that level of service from a country that has one of the lowest GDPs in the world, has been at war for 25 years, has suffered raging famine and drought, widespread corruption, had 3 different dicatatorial regimes and was recently plagued by 3 earthquaques and a volcanic eruption.....Oh wait no, is this France we are taking about ???? Grece has receptly been downgraded to the status of "emerging" country, maybe it's time France followed..... read more

Beware if you are traveling on SNCF with a Eurail pass!!! I had two experiences with SNCF and neither were good. First I booked a trip from Barcelona to Paris with my Eurail pass. It's supposed to give you free access to trains in Europe except for a small reservation fee. In Spain and Portugal these fees were only 5-7 euros per ticket, even for longer journeys. Well, SNCF charged me 26 euros just to reserve my free ticket, huge rip-off. In addition to this, the train also broke down half way through the trip and we were delayed an hour. My second experience was much worse than the first. When I got to Paris I booked my next train to Luxembourg at the Gare de Lyon station. When I got to the counter, the lady told me that there were no more tickets available in second class (my pass only entitled me to second class tickets) but they would put me in first class. I asked if I had to pay extra and she told me no, all I had to pay was a 6 euro reservation fee (much better than last time). On the day of my train ride I went back to Gare de Lyon, only to not be able to find my train and to be told that it in fact leaves from a smaller station called Gare de Nord. This was kind of my fault for assuming it would leave from the main station, the tickets simply said "Nord" under station name, but as a tourist, you would think the lady selling me the ticket might mention it leaves from a different station. Fortunately I gave myself lot's of time and managed to get to the other station and get my train. After boarding the train and getting to my seat and settling in, the ticket man came through. I showed him my ticket and my Eurail pass and he starts questioning me about why I'm in first class when my Eurail pass is for second class. I explained the situation to him, that they moved me to first class since they were out of second class tickets, and that they told me I didn't have to pay anything else. He told me that that was not correct and that I must pay the difference between a first and second class ticket. After much back and forth I finally relented and had to pay an extra 60 euros so that they didn't kick me off the train. I have been doing extensive train travel in Europe and in Morocco and SNCF is by far the worst of the train companies. The employees just don't care and the company wants to bilk as much money out of you as they can. read more

In June 2014 we were staying in Port Vendres and decided to enquire at the station for tickets to Barcelona. We wanted a day trip with a reasonable amount of time there. We bought the tickets two days in advance and it stated they were valid from the 6th to the 20th and seat numbers were allocated for the 6th. We duly turned up but then a notice came up that the train to Port Bou, where we had to change, was to be one and a half hour's late as some poor person had jumped on the line. This would mean that we would miss the connection and would have to wait so long for another connection that we would have little time in Barcelona. So we made the decision to go on another date but before the 20th. We could not check at the station as the ticket office was not open and then it was the weekend - also closed - so we returned to the station on the Monday to check. The very helpful lady said we could travel any time before the 20th and the seat numbers were not a problem. If booked elsewhere we could sit somewhere else. So we arranged to go on the 11th and duly turned up at the station early in the morning to get the first train. There were no staff anywhere to be seen and another French couple waiting for a train. The sign appeared to give details of a train departing presumably the evening before! The French couple got on the phone and then came to advise us there was a strike. We had not been warned of this on the Monday! On Thursday the 12th we arrived at the station to try to claim a refund as we had no further time to go to Barcelona but the office was closed and there was a notice of continuing disruption and a very limited service. On Friday the 13th we arrived again and found the booking office would be open until 1300 hours. It was then 12.10pm. We explained the situation to a different lady than before and to cut a very long story short we did eventually get our refund but not before a lengthy argument, a phone call by her to someone presumably in authority, our threat of complaining to their head office about their stupidity and rigid rules (which the staff did not seem to know about,), and insisting we were not going to pay out all that money to spend just a couple of hours in Barcelona, we did not know of a strike etc etc. This lady was aggressive to say the least and someone with little French and perhaps more timid would have floundered! When she did eventually say she would exceptionally make a refund (but still continued to tell us what we had done wrong according to the rule book) she handed over a card credit ticket, turned her back on us and proceeded to lock up the station half an hour early! BE WARNED! We love you France but PLEASE join the 21st century and don't treat customers like idiots. read more

Rate one star compared to German ICE, DB Bahn, Thalys and British Eurostar. Your first challenge is finding which platform your train leaves from, which German trains tell you when you buy the ticket, and French trains tell you 10 minutes before the train arrives. Train stations are old, Gare du Nord would likely appear little changed to someone who used it in 1910. Major stations like Nice have tracks with stairways but with no escalators or elevators, and you must haul luggage up or down cement stairways. Our trip from Paris to Nice was nice as to scenery, but it was out last rail trip with SNCF. Note there is no one to help you with bags or locating your car when you get on, although there are employees lingering about on the train.. If you have the unlucky experience to have your train canceled due to one of the very frequent French train strikes you are seriously out of luck. Your next French hotel will bill you for a night anyway, and to get a refund on your train ticket you must spend half a day among the crowds and mayhem at the departure station finding an official rail employee (hey-they are on strike - try and find one!) to verify your train was canceled on the back of your original ticket BEFORE departure time. This while you must also arrange alternate transport (out of France if you are smart) because SNCF sure as heck will not. Oddly, the trains going to Germany were running, as they are run under "SNCF/DB Bahn" - perhaps knowing the French, the Germans have a contract clause or other way of keeping these trains running, anyway that is how we finally got out of France, on a DB Bahn train, when we were hit by the Great French Train Strike of 2014. During the SNCF rail strike, which went on for weeks in June, we met a woman with 2 kids who had been stranded on a train in the middle of nowhere in France overnight, in the heat, no a/c no relief. Someone had cut the overhead electric lines- and who else would do this but an employee of SNCF? We also saw broken windows at the Lyon Part Dieu station, almost certainly not done by the public, as the French public is very meekly accepting of abuse when it comes to being treated badly by public employees, likely done by train employees. At least get trip insurance for any French public transit, rail, air or other transportation you purchase and be ready and prepared to rent a car in France if you don't want to spend your whole vacation waiting for a strike to end. BTW, inter-city bus lines are prohibited in France as a special favor to SNCF. read more

Don't trust what this company offers. When I bought my train ticket from Biarritz to Saumur back in June, I was sold a fully refundable ticket anytime before departure.. As an emergency emerged, I tried to get a refund of the ticket a day before departure at the train station in their office, and they did the paperwork and said it will take a long process but I will get my money back.. LIES. I havent received my money even tho they took a copy of my card and all my details.. I do not understand how such a big company can have a terrible service.. I called them many times, since they dont give you the option to contact them by email, and we couldnt solve my problems. Very disappointing.. Rather take the bus or fly and avoid these bad times with them.. read more