Chemins de fer de Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterranee

The Chemins de fer de Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterranee, known as the PLM, was a French railway company formed in 1857 from the merger of the Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Mediterranee companies. It operated a main line linking Paris to the French Riviera through Dijon, Lyon and Marseille, and also ran railways in Algeria, becoming one of the principal railway companies in France until it was absorbed in 1938 into the state-owned Societe nationale des chemins de fer francais. Its Paris headquarters on the rue Saint-Lazare, once called the most opulent of any French railway company office, went on to serve as the SNCF head office until 1999.