Voie ferrée d'intérêt local

These areas were beyond the economic reach of the networks of the intérêt général, which were concessions of the grandes compagnies ("Big Companies")[Note 1] who ran their lines for profit.

The Prefect of the Bas-Rhin department, Monsieur Migneret, invented the VFIL concept with the passing of the Act of 21 May 1836 which defined the prefecture's powers over highways.

[1] The State had to restore good order to the situation and, in 1878, Charles de Freycinet, the new Minister of Public Works, gave France a vision of a comprehensive system of railways.

[5] The Inter-war period saw new laws (of 1 October 1926 and 17 April 1927, for example) which, with their measures of decentralisation and removal of red tape, tried to ease the financial difficulties of companies already closing their lines and often replacing them with road transport.

Signalling was itself minimal because of the small number of journeys (generally six a day before the First World War, and a few infrequent freight trains each week, fewer after 1914).

Stations were built in the same style, of small dimensions: a little waiting room and, attached to it, a modest ticket hall leading to a platform long enough to serve the most populous locality.

The slowness and rudimentary comfort of the secondary railways have passed into folk stories; anecdotes abound of unsavoury episodes, passengers getting off the train to push it up a steep hill, children hot-wiring cars to run alongside the breathing machine.

Their users gave them nicknames:[12] tortillards ("twisters"), tacots ("bangers"), coucous ("cuckoos"), yoyo (imitative, as on the Boisleux Marquion line), and so on.