A short while ago, a video on the least used passenger rail station in all of France piqued my interest in the Aubrac Line between Beziers in the south of France and Clermont near the center. The mountainous line was electrified with 1500v DC in the 1920's and retains much of its original electrification infrastructure including catenary supports and substation buildings. The line is a good way to see how French railway signaling works in practice as much of the line is single track running under manual block operation with 5-10 mile blocks between stations that also serve as passing points. Some of the cities along the line night have some shorter automatic blocks so there is some variety.
The line is also equipped with Le Crocodile ATS system and the more modern KVB balise based system, which is interesting. Because of the manual block and long gaps between passing points, things can get a bit dull at times, but aside from looking for the 1500v DC substations one can try to figure out if the line uses track circuits or axle counters for train detection.
In general, the library of cab view videos from Europe is far more extensive than those from the US. This might be due to the larger number of rail workers and single person operation that limits snitching. Whatever the reasons, its a great resource to help learn other signaling systems.
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