I posted a couple of weeks ago, comparing SNCF's pricing policy favourably compared to that on the Cally. I'm now an hour into my journey and so far, I may have to revise my position...
The seated coach my reservation is in turned out to be a couchette car which I'd walked 200m down the platform to discover, so I walked back to ask the staff checking tickets but was told to board and they'd sort it out once we were on the move. I haven't seen a single member of staff since departure and am on board the only seated coach, one which is bound for Toulouse rather than my booked destination of Latour de Carol. It's 10pm local time but if I fall asleep I may wake up in the wrong destination without a valid ticket. The coach smells horrible (not sure if that's the toilet or a passenger who keeps laissez leur tripes tomber) and while the seats are very comfortable and the lighting is nicely muted, the walls are covered in horrible coarse fabric that feels like a Brillo pad. There's also no catering or lounge car, so even if the service was as advertised they're missing out on the tourism market (apart from mugs like me).
There's probably a happy medium between the expensive policy of Serco CS, and the demi-fesse-d SNCF way. If anyone can come up with it, they may be able to save both the French and British sleeper services. Nightjet anyone?
Late night edit: having spoken to the Chef du train in my best pidgin Frallemanglais, I've been upgraded to a 6-berth couchette cabin all of my own. Had to follow him with my baggage right down from the rear coach to the second (only nine coaches due to short formation, but the long Corail stock made it feel like I was walking all the way to the Spanish border. He was very helpful, apologetic and friendly (and spoke better English than any of the platform staff at Gare d'Austerlitz) and thus saved SNCF from reputational damage. He explained that the seated coach from the Latour de Carol portion had a fault, and was replaced with a spare couchette car because that was all that was available. He said that the station staff had announced the change (in French too fast for me to make out clearly, but not in any other language- the French aren't so accommodating of regional tongues such as Catalan) and apologised again that I wasn't informed. I explained (in English of course) that they weren't to know that there was someone on board trying to remember school French lessons from 20 years before!
So on reflection, while not going for the premium market might mean SNCF are missing the American tourist market, they aren't doing too bad. The brillo-pad walls of the seated coach could do with changing, but the seats themselves were fine. If the seated coach that should've been there was, I'd have been fine with it. No doubt I'll wish for a cup of coffee in the morning but it won't be the end of the world. I don't know how much of a loss this service makes but then again the stock is state owned (and amortised) and the staff are all state employees, so it can be cross subsidised. I imagine that operators of both ICN and CS could probably learn a few things from each other, to be honest.
