Book on French railways.

[ianp]

Cross-post from other topic: What is the best book, in English, about the history of French railways, including all those secondary and narrow gauge lines that have now largely disappeared? I'd like something with lots of photos, maps and diagrams. An all-purpose, in-depth, guide and history. Not much to ask.

[Andy Hayter]

I doubt you will find anything in one book, in English or French.

 

For the primarily narrow gauge railways the best one I have come across is:

French Minor Railways by WJK Davies - but a bit short on pictures IMHO.

 

For the pictures (more modern than historical - and by modern 1960s onward)

La France a voie etroite (sorry in French but it is a picture book) by Marc Dahlstrom - apologies for the lack of accents and the umlaut on the "o" in Dahlstrom.

 

For the main system I am really struggling to think of any single volume.

 

 

If you were happy with French language books then there are a couple of series of books that I could recommend - but you would be looking at a bank loan to get the series.  They are long out of print and were never cheap in the first place.  Today you would be paying something like £50 (65€) per volume on average for around 6 volumes in the series - one series for secondary railways and a choice of two for the main system (again 5-6 volumes per series).

[Joseph_Pestell]

You would not expect to find one book that gave a comprehensive coverage of UK railways. Even in English and certainly not in French. So why would you expect to find a single book that covered French railways adequately and in English?

 

Apart from Andy's recommendation of WJK Davies, best bet is probably membership of the SNCF Society.

[Delfin]

For Narrow Gauge, look at the author Peter Smith.  His books can be found on Amazon, this is one example.  There are many others.

 

Delfin

 

Edit to say that Joseph_Pestell's suggestion of joining the SNCF society is the top tip on this subject, you will learn more there than anywhere else unless you have fluent French.

[Fat Controller]

I doubt you will find anything in one book, in English or French.

 

For the primarily narrow gauge railways the best one I have come across is:

French Minor Railways by WJK Davies - but a bit short on pictures IMHO.

 

For the pictures (more modern than historical - and by modern 1960s onward)

La France a voie etroite (sorry in French but it is a picture book) by Marc Dahlstrom - apologies for the lack of accents and the umlaut on the "o" in Dahlstrom.

 

For the main system I am really struggling to think of any single volume.

 

 

If you were happy with French language books then there are a couple of series of books that I could recommend - but you would be looking at a bank loan to get the series.  They are long out of print and were never cheap in the first place.  Today you would be paying something like £50 (65€) per volume on average for around 6 volumes in the series - one series for secondary railways and a choice of two for the main system (again 5-6 volumes per series).

 

I doubt you will find anything in one book, in English or French.

 

For the primarily narrow gauge railways the best one I have come across is:

French Minor Railways by WJK Davies - but a bit short on pictures IMHO.

 

For the pictures (more modern than historical - and by modern 1960s onward)

La France a voie etroite (sorry in French but it is a picture book) by Marc Dahlstrom - apologies for the lack of accents and the umlaut on the "o" in Dahlstrom.

 

For the main system I am really struggling to think of any single volume.

 

 

If you were happy with French language books then there are a couple of series of books that I could recommend - but you would be looking at a bank loan to get the series.  They are long out of print and were never cheap in the first place.  Today you would be paying something like £50 (65€) per volume on average for around 6 volumes in the series - one series for secondary railways and a choice of two for the main system (again 5-6 volumes per series).

Would the expensive ones be the Lartilleux 'Géographie Ferroviare'? They seem to going for about 50 Euros per volume at present. 

[EddieB]

In some ways a bit dated (late 'sixties), but another Keith (WJK) Davies book: Continental Railway Handbooks - France, covers a lot of ground (but obviously cannot go into much detail).

 

Mainline and Maritime have just published a "special" edition booklet of French photographs from the Narrow Gauge Railway Society Collection (probably quite a few from WJKD) - but at £9.95 for 64 pages, it seems a bit expensive (I haven't seen a copy yet).

[Andy Hayter]

Would the expensive ones be the Lartilleux 'Géographie Ferroviare'? They seem to going for about 50 Euros per volume at present. 

 

No I was thinking of the two series mentioned by Pacific231G in the parallel thread where Ianp first raised the question - Les petits trains de Jadis and Trains oublies.  In both cases I now regret only getting the volumes related to my immediate interests at the time - SE France/PLM.  Copies can be found on abebooks.fr (other online sites may also have copies).

 

I have not come across Lartilleux, can you recommend them? 

 

As others have said, if you are beginning to develop an interest in French railways, then membership of the SNCF Society really should be a first port of call.

http://www.sncfsociety.org.uk/Site/Welcome.html

[Fat Controller]

No I was thinking of the two series mentioned by Pacific231G in the parallel thread where Ianp first raised the question - Les petits trains de Jadis and Trains oublies.  In both cases I now regret only getting the volumes related to my immediate interests at the time - SE France/PLM.  Copies can be found on abebooks.fr (other online sites may also have copies).

 

I have not come across Lartilleux, can you recommend them? 

 

As others have said, if you are beginning to develop an interest in French railways, then membership of the SNCF Society really should be a first port of call.

http://www.sncfsociety.org.uk/Site/Welcome.html

Lartilleux's works are fascinating, but written during the 1950s, so obviously very dated. They make for a fascinating read, and have a higher proportion of illustration to text than one might find in an English-language publication. A friend in Rouen has a couple of the volumes, which I lost myself in for hours.

Lartilleux himself was a fairly senior person within SNCF, an engineer by training, but working at one point as SNCF's representative in Italy. The French series has volumes covering SNCF, other operators in France, and also the North African railways built by France (Tunisia and Algeria). He also did a couple of volumes on Spanish Railways; there may be others. His son was one of the people involved in developing the cab-based signalling for the TGV, and was based in the UK for some years when CTRL was being built.

[dashnieuil]

For information all French books seem to be very much more expensive than their English counterparts. I believe that this is due to the much smaller market for French language books. I doubt that there is enough demand for anyone to produce detailed English language books on French railways. I have not seen anything in French which covers the whole of France but have seen many regional works - not cheap. Also photographs from rural areas areas pre WW2 tend to be postcard reproductions. Not many country folk had cameras nor the inclination to use them for railway subjects.

In this part of France we had an extensive network of 1m gauge lines radiating out of Angoulême and across the Charente as well as the standard gauge network and main lines.

My own village still has the railway station building and goods yard area which was on the 1m gauge line from Roumazières to Saint Claud and on to Ruffec, and was, according to the book "Voyages en Charente au temps de la vapeur" closed in 1938 or 39. However, a neighbour, now deceased, told me of her journeys as a young girl on this line so it must have been operational until 1950**. The average speed of "Le Petit Train" was no more than 10 kph. I have just found some cartoons from the early days - all the passengers are pushing at the rear - a bystander says "If they don't push they will never arrive on time!" Another - a lady asking the conductor to drop a letter to the station master at the next station, her companion says "If it's urgent my chauffeur will run and deliver it."

** Further reading shows that many closures planned for 1939 to 1941 did not happen because of the war and German occupation. I must do some digging in the Mairie's archives to find out when it closed.

Sorry for rambling on - I only meant to do a 2 line comment!

Dan Horan, Nieuil,

Charente, France

[Andy Hayter]

You are probably right about the smaller market, but 20% VAT is also a major add on cost for those of us from the UK who are not used to VAT being chargeable on books.

Add to that, the market is such hat there are few specialist shops and most books then attract a substantial postage on-cost. 

[ianp]

Thanks for the tips. My use of Google tells me that the only publication with the title "Continental Railway Handbooks - France" was by a chap called JB Snell and published in 1971. Is that the one?

[EddieB]

Thanks for the tips. My use of Google tells me that the only publication with the title "Continental Railway Handbooks - France" was by a chap called JB Snell and published in 1971. Is that the one?

Memo to self, check facts before responding (especially when the book is on a shelf near the computer)!

 

Yes, sorry, the book I was referring to was by JB Snell.  (WJK Davies wrote the companion "West Germany" edition and D Trevor Rowe a third covering Spain and Portugal).

[rue_d_etropal]

A very interesting topic, having been interested in French railways for a few years. The books by Peter Smith are new to me, and I am very surprised not to have seen any reference to them before, especially as I am a member of SNCF society and a reader of Continental Modeller and Voie Libre.

I tend to buy any new English book about French narrow gauge, and will be putting Peter's books on my want list.

One source of info might be Micheline road maps as they tend to show lines, if they still existeven when they are non operational. It is sad to look through my parents' old 1988 copy to see so many now non existent lines north of Beziers, and to think so many still had track then. Earlier road maps will show even more, and would make a good start point in any research.

Earlier this year I discovered the old CF de Camargue which was an electrified metre gauge line centred on Arles.It finally closed in late 1950s, but some of the original buildings in Arles still exist and can be seen on Google Maps online.  Although I have family in the area, I was not aware of its existence, and the fact that it was so different to many French metre gauge lines makes that even more incredible. Sometimes being different, does not make you so visible.

An extensive search on internet provided a lot of info and some drawings, and there had been a book published in 2004, now out of print. A request for info came up trumps, and I was sent copies of an article from the 1970s(I think the book might have been based on this artlcle), and then the same person told me someone was selling a copy of that magazine(with nearly 50 pages about the railay) on eBay which I was lucky enough to buy. He then folloed upith drawings of one of the salt wagons which had been sold to another line. This is to be a modelling project for me, but I am still missing some info. No hurry though.

As for price of French books, I was told by a well known railway book seller in UK, that the reason is that the price in France reflects the proper price.I don't think we value books ar highly as we should. Also book discounting is not allowed as it was also the case in Britain. The French published books are worth every Euro, but they are often very different to British books, and it is frustrating not to be able to look at some before buying them.  This has also meant that there are still far more independant book shops in France, and Amazon has not got such a stranglehold. Odd thing is that you can buy some French books at discount here in Britain.

Researching French railways is fun and is not as difficult as some think. I also have an interest in the French licensed version of the Scammell Mechanical Horse lorry, made by the company FAR . Try searching for that online. The info is out there somehere, and chances are I will stubble across it by accident. Not that I ant another project, ith so much to do on the CF de Camargue line.

 

 

One difference I have noticed in some books, is more about non railway parts. The guide to the CF de Provence is as much a guide to the area as the railway.

[Fat Controller]

Rather than the Michelin maps, the IGN (equivalent of our OS) maps are an excellent source, dependent on scale for routes of old lines and layout of existing ones. There are various scales available:-

http://www.ign.fr/will give you some idea of what to expect. Stanfords in London (http://www.stanfords.co.uk/ ) will stock them.

On the subject of 'Mechanical Horses', SNCF used trailers fitted with Scamell's patent coupling. Apart from the 3-wheel tractors, they used small 4-wheel tractors (Berliets and others), resembling Karrier Bantams.

This looks to be the sort of vehicle I mean:- http://www.ree-modeles.com/catalogue-asphalte-87/les-camions/184-tracteurs-et-remorques-serie-3

[mikeharvey22]

Also on the subject of FAR mechanical,horses, I think they have featured several times in "Charge Utile" along with loads of other fascinating and esoteric French trucks, buses, vans and machinery. Always a great read if you understand French.

 

http://charge-utile.histoireetcollections.com/article/20922/poids-lourds-les-tracteurs-far-a-trois-roues-2.html

http://charge-utile.histoireetcollections.com/article/20824/poids-lourds-les-tracteurs-far-a-trois-roues-1.html

http://charge-utile.histoireetcollections.com/article/21046/poids-lourds-les-tracteurs-far-a-troies-roues-3.html

[unklian]

 Try  " Last Steam Locomotives of France "  by Yves Broncard and published by Ian Allan. It is long out of print but they made so many it is often around secondhand. As the title suggests the pictures ( all black and white BTW ) are of the last years of french steam mostly late sixties .  However the book is laid out railway region by region and the intro to each chapter is very informative. There are also some simple maps. But most of all it covers the whole of France and includes the better known secondary railways. It is of course somewhat out of date for todays French railway scene and it doesnt cover the history of the pre SNCF Grandes Reseau. But it is a good primer I reckon, it got me started on French railways and I still go back and refer to mine after many years and a lot more books on the subject .

[ianp]

Thanks again for the suggestions. I have bought "Continental Railway Handbooks - France" and also "Last Steam Locomotives of France". Both are very informative.