The French train service, SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer) still runs trains that will carry your car from Paris to 18 or 19 stations in the country. Unlike the one pictured in this 1970 postcard where the cars travelled behind the sleeper trains, nowadays you travel on a sleeper train and your car travels separately. A similar service in the UK, the Motorail, stopped operating during the 1990s.
In spite of taking a lot of the traffic off the roads, the French authorities have regularly felt the need to run road safety campaigns on their stamps.
I think their messages are all self explanatory. I rather like the design of the last one which I have on a card from 2004, showing a human body overlaid with road maps and wearing a seat belt.
This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"
Great postcard, it does have a very 1970s feel to it. I hadn't seen the stamps before, a lot of details in some of those designs.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of messages about road safety today1
ReplyDeleteThis would make me a bit nervous about driving in France!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about the train service - that is a brilliant idea.
I'll go with the seat belt stamp as one saved my wife from serious injury some years ago.
ReplyDeleteive seen such train services on a train going from the Adriatic coast in Montenegro, till Belgrade in Serbia..I know my parents went on such a train some years ago...cant tell if it is still operational, but it is useful....and when i was little, this service was available on many train relations in the former Yugoslavia
ReplyDeleteI guess it is never enough to keep emphasizing to people how important road safety is...
I don't think we have such a train service in Australia. Great idea though for travelling long distances. I really like the 70s feel of the postcard, and the design of all the stamps. But I agree with you - the seatbelt stamp is particularly impressive.
ReplyDeleteA very timely postcard for me. I, recently, took my first Amtrak cross country trip from St. Louis, MO, to Seattle, WA. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about it....I seem to be noticing anything and everything train-related now. :)
ReplyDeleteWow ... I've never even heard of such a thing. What a great idea. Though it seems that American's would rather drive than ride the train. Amtrack isn't exactly known for being on time around here ... one time our granddaughter's train was 8 hours late, and we spent the night in the middle of winter in a parking lot waiting for her (it was a 45 min. drive back home).
ReplyDeleteHow have you been?
Kathy M.
Great stamps, with messages that I guess never get old.
ReplyDeletethank you for participating!
The seat belt one is very clever, brings a new meaning to arterial. The postcard is perfect 70s, I've never taken a car on a train but do like French trains.
ReplyDeleteI think every country could do with road safety messages on their stamps! To bad people don't seem to heed them as they should.
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