And of course, because of the regional financing, a logical line such as Grenoble-Aix-Marseille doesn't exist. I'd bet one can find examples like this all across France. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
It's also a spectacular line... a couple photos :
Just found a nice French wiki on trains, and a nice website that seems to have a wealth of train-related informations. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
In the German language, Provinzialismus (provincialism) and the connected word Kleinstaaterei (appr. 'statelet-ism') has some strong historic connotations. During the latter time of the many German states and statelets, and then until WWI when the constituents of unified Germany retained significant autonomies, all-German nationalists applied the above words for any problems arising from the application of local sovereignity/autonomy. But one field where there was definitely more to it than the clash of rival identities was railways: there were compatibility issues, over-expensive projects kept within single statelet borders, unreasonable parallel projects, and needed but unrealised cross-border lines. Some of those were built post-WWI. But from the mid-nineteen-nineties, it's back to 19th-century conditions: the same financing mode also applied in France led to a dying of services on branchlines crossing the borders of the Länder. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.