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France was a sluggard in building railways, compared to Britain and Belgium, which had already demonstrated their worthiness by 1830. Urban land was expensive, as was iron and coal. A more serious obstacle was powerful political opposition, especially as mobilized by the Transport companies that use canals, roads, and rivers. They blocked the necessary railway charters in Parliament. Already in 1810, the French engineer Pierre Michel Moisson-Desroches proposed to build seven national railways from Paris, in order to travel "short distances within the Empire". However, nothing happened.<ref>{{cite book|author=Nicholas Papayanis|title=Planning Paris Before Haussmann|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umLmjHFZoT4C&pg=PA79-IA55|year=2004|page=79|isbn=9780801879302 }}</ref> Mining companies in 1828 opened [[Saint-Étienne to Andrézieux Railway|the first railway]] to move coal from the fields around [[St. Etienne]] 11 miles from St. Etienne to the [[Loire River]]. Most of the work was done by horses, although steam locomotives were used for the last segment. Passenger service opened in 1835.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dunham |first=Arthur L. |date=1941 |title=How the First French Railways Were Planned |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2113392 |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=12–25 |issn=0022-0507}}</ref>
Between 1828 and 1833, 57 km [[Saint-Étienne–Lyon railway]] was constructed. During the first few months of operation, horses were used to provide the tractive power on this line, then locomotives were used.<ref>
The small French banking system was stretched to the limit in funding the early operations. The [[Péreire brothers]] were pioneers, but they discovered expenses were much higher than expected, especially maintenance costs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ratcliffe |first=Barrie M. |date=1976 |title=Railway Imperialism: The Example of the Pereires' Paris–Saint-Germain Company, 1835–1846 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00076797600000003 |journal=Business History |language=en |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=66–84 |doi=10.1080/00076797600000003 |issn=0007-6791}}</ref> The government rejected all major rail projects before 1842, and France steadily fell behind the nations that had reached a quick consensus on railway policy. In 1842 Britain had 1,900 miles of railways in operation; France only 300.<ref>Georges. Lefranc, "The French Railroads, 1823-1842", ''Journal of Business and Economic History'' (1929–30) 2:299-331.</ref>
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