'Fancy a brief, stimulating encounter? Choo-choose me'

Rail company SNCF say the scheme isn't for lonely hearts, but who knows where the journey could lead. Picture / Reuters.

PARIS - The country which invented the philosophy cafe has just had another smart idea: the train of thought.

From this week, passengers booking some long distance train journeys in France can arrange to sit next to other people with similar interests.

Would you like to travel from Paris to Marseilles while discussing Descartes or football or prospects for next year's presidential elections? Would you like to exchange 90 minutes of conversation in French, for 90 minutes of conversation in English? Would you like to learn to knit? Or play snap? Or combine forces to defeat diabolical Sudoko puzzles?

All possibilities - save one - are open to passengers who pay an extra €1.50 ($3.10) to find out the declared interests of passengers already booked on their intended train.

The exception, insisted upon by the surprisingly prudish French national railway system, is that there must be no lonely hearts or erotic proposals. "The mission of the SNCF is not to be a go-between for amorous meetings," said spokeswoman Mireille Faugere.

What a shame. Has the SNCF not heard of the classic British 1940s romantic movie Brief Encounter, which was set in the buffet at Carnforth railway station?

Faugere says that "grown up" passengers can do what they want (in private) once they meet but the new service is not aimed at "people purely looking for a sexual partner".

There will even by a kind of internet chaperone service, manned by the SNCF, to weed out suspected lonely hearts. Anyone judged to be racist or violent will also be excluded.

To use the new service, you must travel on one of the special, cut-price, high-speed trains offered to internet bookers only.

The trains connect Paris with 11 cities - Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Bordeaux, Cannes, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nice, Nimes, Saint Raphael, Toulon and Toulouse - from €19 for a one-way trip.

The internet booking site for the rail service will now have a sister site - idtgvandco.com - where you can browse through the interests and offers of fellow passengers. Travellers provide information on "my best quality", "my job", "my favourite food".

Travellers who definitely wish to spend the entire journey reading the Da Vinci Code, or doing Sudokos without help, or admiring the French countrsyside at 290km/h have not been forgotten. The SNCF says that marked "silent" areas will be set aside.

The launch of the cheap internet booking trains early this year was opposed by unions who disliked the idea of the SNCF undercutting its own normal services.

The project has, however, been a huge success and expects shortly to carry its one millionth passenger.

- INDEPENDENT