French Practice Regarding Luggage Compartments On Minor Lines (Epoch III)?

[BillB]

I am contemplating an HO French branch terminus to fiddle-yard in a small space, probably 6-ft long, and possibly as small as a 4-ft scenic section plus a 2-ft FY on the same board. I appreciate that in France there was a standard gauge mainline network and a narrow gauge secondary network, so I may be introducing an English concept, but I want to work in standard gauge, not narrow gauge. I like the Roco ex-Prussian 6-wheelers. They are interesting and short, and I have most of them, so I want to use them! But they have no luggage compartments as an English branch consist would have. So I am wondering how a French branch line would handle passenger luggage. Did they make provision for luggage of the type an English branch line would, e.g. mail sacks, bicycles, etc. There are Roco 4-wheel “Thunderbox” type vans, Roco France 4204F, but they have a different character to the coaches and might be overkill on a branch train? They look more like a French equivalent to an SR GUV / PLV for mainline trains. And there are Roco G10 boxcars. I would appreciate thoughts from anyone who knows / has attempted similar / or is interested!
Thanks,
Bill.

Edited October 14, 2023 by BillB
Spelling

[Andy Hayter]

Although quite a few of the lines on the secondary system were narrow gauge, there were also a lot that were standard gauge so your concept  is well within the realms of possibility.

 

Regarding you problem of parcels carriage, this would normally be with a full brake van (fourgon) marshalled between the loco and the passenger coaches.  I think this was a requirement rather than just common practice.  

 

https://www.pierredominique.com/art-97298-fourgon-bagages-avec-guerite-5160-etat.html

but might need rebranding

 

or this which provides a full short rake and perhaps more realistic than ex-German stock.

https://www.pierredominique.com/art-47254-voitures-fourgons-essieux-sncf-kit.html

 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Andy Hayter

[Pacific231G]

There is indeed plenty of scope for an "independent" standard gauge line. Though France had about 20 000kms of metre gauge railways (plus 442 kms of public sub-metric narrow gauge lines) it also had about 2 500 kms of local standard gauge railways that were not part of the national network and in 1950 about half of these were still open for passengers. These included the extensive Mamers-St. Calais railway in Sarthe (open to passengers till 1965) part of which is preserved, and extensive systems in Gironde, Landes and Herault where the country is fairly flat and the Chinon-Richelieu line that was preserved until 2004 though is sadly now a cycle track. 

 

There had been a requirement for a buffer between locomotive and passsengers but by Ep III (on SNCF at least) this only applied to wooden bodied stock running as rapides or expresses. This could be provided by a separate Fourgon or by a baggage compartment at the locomotive end of the first coach (or, in extremis, by simply locking the first three passenger compartments out of use)  The habit tended to persist for some time but was by no means universal.

I've seen many photos of passenger trains on local railways consisting of just a couple of four wheel coaches and, where there was a a fourgon, remarshalling the train to place it next to the loco tended to fall out of use. The major railway companies and SNCF built passenger fourgons (Fourgons "D") able to run at express speeds and older examples might well have been sold to local railways. Otherwise, if they weren't using hand me downs from their main line brethren,  they would either convert part of a coach or adapt any old brake fitted goods van.

A lot of ex German reparations stock found its way onto France's railways after both world wars but I couldn't say how much of it eventually migrated onto independent local railways. I use both Piko and Fleischmann four wheel coaches on my own layout (which is also supposed to be a standard gauge "départemental" ) but I'm not sure how authentic that is.

 

The standard gauge locals I know most about are those in the Gironde and Landes and, looking at photos of passenger trains on the former, I see just coaches with no sign of a fourgon, on the latter almost all trains were mixed and they used ex Midi main line four-wheel coaches with a couple of compartments  knocke into a baggage/fourgon compartment ( when passenger services were withdrawn these were used as goods fourgons) though I have seen one photo of a fourgon obviously converted from a goods van by adding small side windows for the conductor.

One major difference between the metre and standard gauge locals is that the former would, when built, have been equipped with a full range of rolling stock including coaches, wagons and fourgons. The latter, because they could, were more likely to acquire new locomotives but, because by the 1890s, when the real boom in local railway began, the main line companies were on their second or third generation of carriages, so equipping or re-equipping themselves with second hand stock was far more common though many did have coaches specially built for them (The SE Gironde even acquired a number of ex Metropolitan Railway eight wheel coaches which were too large in profile to be sold to other British railways) Some did though have rolling stock specially built for them and this might well include fourgons

This is an impression (from Wikiedia) of the CF d'Herault's usually nine coach train train from Montpelier to the resort of Palavas. but in actual photos the fourgon can be at either end or not present.

 

Some of the coaches still run on the short 3km railway from Sabres to the Marquèze Ecomusée but AFAIK none of the fourgons survived.  

In France, railways didn't own their own rights of way but were given concessions to build and operate railways on land belonging to the state or an individual département .

The major legal distinction was not between standard and narrow (usually metre gauge) gauge railways but between those of d'Intérêt General which formed the national network of mainly standard but some heavier metre gauge lines (some of which still survive) which were the responsibility of the state (though until 1938 run by private companies)  and those of d'Intérêt Local which were the responsibility of each Département*.  These could be roughly seen as light railways though some were almost indistinguishable from main line branches. One effect of this was that operating rules for I.L. lines were set by the relevant Département's Prefecture and though they mainly simply adopted standard regulations there were variations. An I.L. line would probably not for example require staffed level crossings on all but the busiest roads and signalling would be minimal or non existent except where they encountered main line railways. 

 

*There was a subcategory of d'Intérêt Local  railways- Tramways - which ran alongside or on roads for more than 2/3 of their length. These had the advantage that very little land had to be bought to build them (except for stations and places where they had to leave the road to avoid corners or steep gradients) but the disadvantage that their speed was limited and they very quickly disappeared when buses and lorries became more available, the effect of different local rules can be seen by those tramways that had fully or partially enclosed locomotives, at least at first, and those that (like the last to survive, the Tramways de Correze) simply used normal tank engines even in towns. Apart from urban trams, I don't think many tramways were standard gauge)

Edited October 15, 2023 by Pacific231G

[BillB]

Hi Andrew, thanks very much for your reply. By coincidence my question was prompted by my browsing PD's weekend "Promos", but I had not seen the MMM RG coaches. Unfortunately I have a Metrop ETAT "Bicyclette", of dubious running qualities, and so I probably need all of those MMM ETAT coaches for it, but with their ETAT lettering unaltered, but not this weekend!! But you made me think of the Jouef "Imperial" fourgon which is commendably short, 3 1/2" over buffers, and which has open doors, enabling a bit of character to be added in the form of packages, milk churns, etc. I have just hooked up a Jouef ETAT fourgon with a Roco ex-KPEV 6-wheeler and they look fine together, buffer and coupler height are perfect, and even the "greens" are close enough to look the same. The roof of the fourgon is a bit low, such that the roof of the birdcage lookout is level with the main roof of the 6-wheeler, and lower than the clerestory, but that wouldn't matter if its primery role was luggage, not train safety.

 

And thank you David. I had not been thinking of a fourgon being required as a safety buffer. I had been wondering in part whether if a guard / brakeman was present in the Guerite, that would make the need for one in a van redundant, thus the only purpose of a van would be for luggage / cargo. And I hadn't envisaged branch line trains to be anywhere near as long as in your photos.

 

Thanks again,

Bill.

Edited October 15, 2023 by BillB
Clarity

[Gordonwis]

On 15/10/2023 at 16:08, BillB said:

. I have just hooked up a Jouef ETAT fourgon with a Roco ex-KPEV 6-wheeler and they look fine together, buffer and coupler height are perfect, and even the "greens" are close enough to look the same. The roof of the fourgon is a bit low, such that the roof of the birdcage lookout is level with the main roof of the 6-wheeler, and lower than the clerestory, but that wouldn't matter if its primery role was luggage, not train safety.

 

 

Thanks again,

Bill.

 

 

If you want to use ex-German coaches and avoid spending any more money buying new stuff, base your layout in Alsace Lorraine, where all the 'Frenchified' German stock can be used perfectly realistically. 

 

Several of the branches were light railways or light railways in character, with notable lines being Cernay - Sentheim, which included roadside track (and which became a preserved line - very active when I was there in 1979, but then there was a split and one party went off to create a 'rival' preserved line CFT du Rhin)

 

https://www.train-doller.org/

 

A classic private standard gauge line that made an almost seamless transition from 'real railway' to 'heritage railway' was Etival - Senones. This used  German style stock.

 

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_d'Étival_à_Senones

 

 

[Pacific231G]

On 15/10/2023 at 16:08, BillB said:

Hi Andrew, thanks very much for your reply. By coincidence my question was prompted by my browsing PD's weekend "Promos", but I had not seen the MMM RG coaches. Unfortunately I have a Metrop ETAT "Bicyclette", of dubious running qualities, and so I probably need all of those MMM ETAT coaches for it, but with their ETAT lettering unaltered, but not this weekend!! But you made me think of the Jouef "Imperial" fourgon which is commendably short, 3 1/2" over buffers, and which has open doors, enabling a bit of character to be added in the form of packages, milk churns, etc. I have just hooked up a Jouef ETAT fourgon with a Roco ex-KPEV 6-wheeler and they look fine together, buffer and coupler height are perfect, and even the "greens" are close enough to look the same. The roof of the fourgon is a bit low, such that the roof of the birdcage lookout is level with the main roof of the 6-wheeler, and lower than the clerestory, but that wouldn't matter if its primery role was luggage, not train safety.

 

And thank you David. I had not been thinking of a fourgon being required as a safety buffer. I had been wondering in part whether if a guard / brakeman was present in the Guerite, that would make the need for one in a van redundant, thus the only purpose of a van would be for luggage / cargo. And I hadn't envisaged branch line trains to be anywhere near as long as in your photos.

 

Thanks again,

Bill.

Hi Bill 

The Montpelier-Palavas line of the CF d'Herault was a bit of an exception as it was handling commuter traffic as well as city folk from Montpelier going to the seaside at weekends. It was interesting because many of its trains either didn't include a fourgon or, when they did, didn't bother to shunt it to the other end of the train for each return run  Typical "Départemental" trains were far shorter with maybe no more than a fourgon and a couple of coaches and a lot of them ran as mixed trains. Apart from messageries  (parcels and smalls) most "Départemental" railways also carried accompanied post, so at least one and possibly two train each day would need accomodation for that. In practice, given the typical three trains a day service, the fourgon would probably be kept with the passenger carriages even when it wasn't needed for parcels traffic but additional trains seem to have often not had them.   

The Jouef "imperials"  are a bit heavy in structure but are dimensionally accurate, the fourgon is actually a "fourgon generateur" with a dynamo to provide power for the train's electric lighting but its design would be the same as an ordinary fourgon. It's a shame that Jouef didn't also produce a model of the enclosed "Bidel" double deck coaches as they ran until the 1950s but I think the imperials etc. were built to accompany the l'Ouest 0-6-0T "Boer". Jouef's single deck four-wheel coaches are really just the "imperial" with the upper deck removed so, because the double deck coaches had a lowered roof for the lower deck, are not really authentic.