Cab ride in a DMU from Saumur to Les Sables-d'Olonne

[Welly]

Video just out on YT of a cab ride from Saumur to Les Sables-d'Olonne through wine growing country. 2 hours 30minutes long!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBCMHifaQkw

 

It looks like it used to be double track but was singled and I was surprised that it is electrified! It looks like 25kV AC judging from the size of the wires and insulators.

[Fat Controller]

I think it's electrified as far as the quarries at Thouars, an important source of ballast and construction aggregates; the nearest to Paris, I believe.

[Ben B]

Wow, and I thought the Cambrian Coast was bad last summer when I visited, but that French line looks like it needs a visit from the Weedkiller train... there I stretches there which look almost abandoned! 

[Oldddudders]

I really enjoyed this, watching it right through. The track details, like treadles, singles and pairs, presumably for crossing actuation, and what I take to be balises in the 4' way. And it's lovely to see how many crossing-keepers' cottages are still extant, years after the passages à niveau were converted to rising barriers. 

[Pacific231G]

13 hours ago, Welly said:

Video just out on YT of a cab ride from Saumur to Les Sables-d'Olonne through wine growing country. 2 hours 30minutes long!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBCMHifaQkw

 

It looks like it used to be double track but was singled and I was surprised that it is electrified! It looks like 25kV AC judging from the size of the wires and insulators.

Thanks very much for posting this Welly, an excellent find.

The line from Saumur to Thouars was double track. It was part of the main line from Paris to Bordeaux via Chartres and Chateau-de-Loir that the CF de l'Etat cobbled together from various former cross-country lines (apparent from the tight curves) after it took over the CF de l'Ouest.  It was downgraded after SNCF took over in 1938 (the main route to Bordeaux was that of the PO via Tours and Angoulem) and I think it was singled during the occupation. It was electrified at 25 KV 50Hz in 1982. 

Other sections of this run were always AFAIK single including the last bit  from La Roche sur Yon to Les Sables de Olonne. That was famous for having a TGV service before it was electrified (also at 25kV 50Hz)   I saw a TGV at Les Sables d'Olonne in the 1990s when the line was still mechanically signalled.

 

Though there are three daily trains each way between Saumur and Thouars.  It doesn't appear that the unelectrified section between Thouars and La Roche sees any passenger trains apart from the Train des Sables (weekends and Jours de Fete May -September, daily in July and August) so it's not suprising that the track is so weedy. 

 

As Old Dudders says, this 4K video offers a huge amount of detail . I  particularly noticed the suprising number of unbarriered level crossings on unclassified roads protected only a St. Andrews cross and the unusually narrow platform at Les Sables. That surely doesn't have two metres of clearance from the seats and columns so useful for space starved modellers.

It was sad, though not an unfamilair sight in France, to see the number of unused or even disconnected goods sidings and yards. Emblematic of SNCF's major failure to hang on to its goods traffic against the relentless advance of the CO2 spewing HGV even for customers who wanted to continue to ship by rail.  

Edited January 22, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

Update

I tried to update  the above post last night soon after I posted it but discovered this morning that the edit hadn't happened. 

I'd  looked at the timetables in more detail and, except at weekends there are , apart from the Train des Plages (not the Train des Sables- I was wrong about the name) , three TERs between Saumur and Thouars. Two of these go on to Bressuire one of which goes all the way to Les Sables d'Olonne. So, the line between Bressuire and La Roche sur Yon  does see one return train on weekdays and two on weekdays in high summer when the Train des Plages is running daily  I did wonder how many people from Tours or the  Saumur area are willing to spend four or five hours or more on  a train for an afternoon on the beach (arr. 11.30- dep 18.00) but there did seem to be people at every stop some of who looked they were doing just that.  I've watched more of the section between Thouars and La Roche sur Yonne and was suprised to see that that Bressuire (once a major junction)  and Chantonnay still have mechanical signals.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Pacific231G

[JeffP]

13 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I really enjoyed this, watching it right through. The track details, like treadles, singles and pairs, presumably for crossing actuation, and what I take to be balises in the 4' way. And it's lovely to see how many crossing-keepers' cottages are still extant, years after the passages à niveau were converted to rising barriers. 

Nearest railway line to our property in France is the long closed line that meandered across the Haute Vienne taking in Rochechouart. There used to be a nice steam depot there.

The part of the line between Oradour sur Vayres and Chalus is now a "voie verte" or greenway, about 13km, it's open to walkers, cyclists and horses.

All the old crossing keeper's houses are in private hands, at least one is English owned, and another was a lady who was a watch and clock repairer, now retired.

Interestingly, there is also a velo-rail south of Chalus on the same line.

[Fat Controller]

I did like that view of a group of schoolchildren, each with their suitcase, waiting for their train, fairly early on. It's the sort of thing you'd see in a 1950s film. 

There weren't as many grain silos as I'd expect to see in an area like this, but there seemed to be one or two former military sites. These would have been an important source of both passenger and freight traffic; with 'trains des permissionaires' every weekend.

[Re6/6]

Thanks for posting that Welly. An enjoyable watch. It was interesting to see all the disused sidings, some still wired when compared with over here they would've all been ripped out by now!

Edited January 22, 2022 by Re6/6

[Welly]

On 21/01/2022 at 11:56, Fat Controller said:

I think it's electrified as far as the quarries at Thouars, an important source of ballast and construction aggregates; the nearest to Paris, I believe.

Yep! I posted the video before I watched that far! Makes sense.

[Welly]

12 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Other sections of this run were always AFAIK single including the last bit  from La Roche sur Yon to Les Sables de Olonne. That was famous for having a TGV service before it was electrified (also at 25kV 50Hz)   I saw a TGV at Les Sables d'Olonne in the 1990s when the line was still mechanically signalled.

(My italics) TGV on an unelectrified line? What diesel loco was fitted with the Scharfenberg coupler for this?

[longchap]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

I did like that view of a group of schoolchildren, each with their suitcase, waiting for their train, fairly early on. It's the sort of thing you'd see in a 1950s film. 

There weren't as many grain silos as I'd expect to see in an area like this, but there seemed to be one or two former military sites. These would have been an important source of both passenger and freight traffic; with 'trains des permissionaires' every weekend.

I too smiled at the schoolchildren waiting for the train with their cases at Montreuil Bellay, just a few km from where we live.

 

The relative lack of grain silos in this countryside is due to the Loire Valley being a wine producing region, where vines are much more evident than other crops 

[Welchester]

Excellent find. I had forgotten until I saw the station name that when the First Emperor moved the department capital to La Roche sur Yon from Fontenay le Comte that with characteristic modesty he renamed the town 'Napoléon'.

[Fat Controller]

3 hours ago, Welly said:

(My italics) TGV on an unelectrified line? What diesel loco was fitted with the Scharfenberg coupler for this?

CC72000 diesels, if my memory serves me correctly.

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, longchap said:

I too smiled at the schoolchildren waiting for the train with their cases at Montreuil Bellay, just a few km from where we live.

 

The relative lack of grain silos in this countryside is due to the Loire Valley being a wine producing region, where vines are much more evident than other crops 

I could see there were vines in the background; I was surprised to see how extensive the vineyards were. It's  not an area I've spent much time in, though we did visit Saumur about four years ago, as my (Lyonnaise) god-daughter was doing a stage in 'Oenotourisme' there. 

[Welly]

26 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

CC72000 diesels, if my memory serves me correctly.

Thanks - I googled a bit and found this article about the CC72000 which shows a close-up photo of the Scharfenburg coupler and a photo of a CC72000 - TGV rake at another location.

https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/6992/from-the-archive-last-of-the-giants-sncf-cc72000/

 

Similar to the Class 57 and Pendolino drags in the early 2000s yet the SNCF got there first decades earlier!

[longchap]

52 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

I could see there were vines in the background; I was surprised to see how extensive the vineyards were. It's  not an area I've spent much time in, though we did visit Saumur about four years ago, as my (Lyonnaise) god-daughter was doing a stage in 'Oenotourisme' there. 

 

There is indeed much interest in wine tourism and we help at a local agricultural college every year as “English judges” in the oral examinations. Hope your god daughter is successful in her métier.

 

Have fun next time you make it over to France.

 

Bill

[Pacific231G]

On 22/01/2022 at 15:47, Fat Controller said:

  On 22/01/2022 at 12:38, Welly said:

(My italics) TGV on an unelectrified line? What diesel loco was fitted with the Scharfenberg coupler for this?

CC72000 diesels, if my memory serves me correctly.

Your memory is correct.

There's a TV report on it here

 

I think this all became a bit of a bad joke (like the Eurostars crawling along through Kent before HS-1 was built) and there were politics involved. The Vendée was the only Département on the Atlantic coast without a TGV service and it  feared that it was losing out in terms of economic development. There was poltical pressure on SNCF which came up with this "solution" to say that Vendée was now in the TGV network though it actually ran diesel hauled between Nantes and Les Sables at a decidedly modest speed that did nothing for the journey time. Converting several 72000s to haul the TGV sets wasn't cheap.  The service began in 2000 but only until 2004 when a new département council president decided it wasn't worth doing . The line was electrified in 2008 with much local fanfare.  There had been projections that this would increas summer overnight visitor numbers by 20%. In reality, between 2006-2017 numbers went down by 3.7% . Given that Le Sables has just two return TGV s (plus a third in summer) and ten TERs I can't help wondering whether the cost of electriifcation was really justified but French railways seem to survive on a very thin diet of trains.  

 

I drove through Les Sables d'Olonne at that time and saw a TGV set in the main platform  drawing power from the OLE (without a CC 72000 coupled to it)  and thought nothing of it. I then explored the old line to the port (fishing AFAIK) which was still completely intact though disused and on the way out of the town noticed that the terminus and approaches was still mechanically signalled. The penny simply didn't drop till I got back home and went through my photos and realised that outside the station itself  there was no overhead cable for the TGV to run on . I then discovered what was really going on there. 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Pacific231G
clarity