Graissessac

[Focalplane]

A couple of years ago I went searching for some coal to add to my OO gauge tenders.  I spend a lot of time in Languedoc, which may not be famous for coal but there are a few abandoned open workings north of Béziers which have relatively easy access.  The mines were abandoned over 20 years ago and not much remains today, but I did find this view of the area in its hay day half way up a neighboring mountain:

 

 

As I mentioned, not much remains and historical information may be scarce, but the situation is crying out for a detailed model - open cast mines, conveyor belts down to the valley, processing plant, sidings, etc.  Ideally steam should be the era, but I feel sure diesels were used later (I doubt the line was ever electrified).

 

If anyone is interested I can supply more information.

 

PS I did get my coal supply as well!

[Fat Controller]

 Where did the line connect to the main line towards Beziers? We walked along part of an abandoned (but not lifted) line around there about 20 years ago.

Those offices look a bit over-specified; I thought Welsh mine-owners had delusions of grandeur. The photo shows a deep mine- the shafts are to the top left, with spoil heaps (terrils) to their right. This deep mine shut in 1962, and the site was turned over to open-cast. 

 

In the Wikipedia France article, there is reference to the railway being electrified in 1931/2. It closed to passengers in 1954, and on 30/09/1978 to freight. In 31/08/1989, authority was given to lift the track, which was done over the following years.

 

 We passed another mine, still active, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, just south of Bedarieux on the line towards Beziers. There were some bogie hoppers being loaded, and a couple of older locotracteurs which had been left standing idle- I have some photos somewhere.

 

I believe the coal went to a power station at Albi; there was a line across country until the late 1970s. Trains were diesel-hauled by pairs of BB66xxx.

 

Here's the Wikipedia France link; there are seperate passages for mine and railway:-

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graissessac

 

It's strange when you drive around this area to realise how much industry there once was- apart from the coal mines, there had been mining for ferrous and non-ferrous metals (including uranium near Lodeve), as well as textiles.

[Focalplane]

Where did the line connect to the main line towards Beziers? We walked along part of an abandoned (but not lifted) line around there about 20 years ago.

Those offices look a bit over-specified; I thought Welsh mine-owners had delusions of grandeur. The photo shows a deep mine- the shafts are to the top left, with spoil heaps (terrils) to their right. This deep mine shut in 1962, and the site was turned over to open-cast. 

 

In the Wikipedia France article, there is reference to the railway being electrified in 1931/2. It closed to passengers in 1954, and on 30/09/1978 to freight. In 31/08/1989, authority was given to lift the track, which was done over the following years.

 

 We passed another mine, still active, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, just south of Bedarieux on the line towards Beziers. There were some bogie hoppers being loaded, and a couple of older locotracteurs which had been left standing idle- I have some photos somewhere.

 

I believe the coal went to a power station at Albi; there was a line across country until the late 1970s. Trains were diesel-hauled by pairs of BB66xxx.

 

Here's the Wikipedia France link; there are seperate passages for mine and railway:-

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graissessac

 

It's strange when you drive around this area to realise how much industry there once was- apart from the coal mines, there had been mining for ferrous and non-ferrous metals (including uranium near Lodeve), as well as textiles.

Thank you for your detailed reply. There's plenty of coal left up there. I am a geologist, by the way. The economics of it are now suspect, given that the rails have been lifted, etc. I was not aware that the line had been electrified, there is no evidence of that today.

 

I think the mine south of Bedarieux was for bauxite. It was a major reason the Germans were interested in the area during WWII occupation. The pisolitic bauxite minerals are quite spectacular in the foothills south of Herepian and Bedarieux.

 

The line ran east and joined the existing line just north of Bedarieux. Lots of tunnels! There was another branch line to the west with several bridges still intact, but this was a dead end.

 

The mine's management office certainly has a palatial aspect, even today. Many of the miners were Polish, I am told.

[Joseph_Pestell]

A fascinating area. I recall coming across the remains of this line in about 1987 when on holiday in the area with friends from the Norbury Club. I don't recall the track still being down - so perhaps it was removed without proper authorisation. On the road we were using when we found the line, there was the most lovely crossing keeper's cottage, a bungalow quite unlike anything I have seen elsewhere on the French rail network. It was abandoned and semi-derelict at the time but would have made a lovely house for someone.

[Focalplane]

Here are some more photos of the area:

 

First the outcrops of coal, the first showing nice leaf fossils:

 

 

 

Views of Graissessac from where I collected the coal:

 

 

The abandoned open workings:

 

 

Close up of the town up above the mine workings and railway yard:

 

 

A stone bridge left behind.  The line across it ran toward Bedarieux:

 

 

 

The remains of the slag heap, the sidings would have been below the slag heap:

 

 

The chimney from the original plant:

 

 

And lastly, a memorial to the town's past.  This is a piece of the larger viaduct that ran west up the Mare Valley to St. Gervais:

 

[Fat Controller]

Thanks for publishing those photos; I'll have to see if I can find the ones of the locotracteur. When we were there, Bedarieux yard had lines of stored Transfesa wagons; possibly the same ones that were later converted for Ford containers.

Have you had a look at the 'butte and mesa' structures slightly further east, on the southern shores of Lac du Salagou? They look like something out of a spaghetti western. 

You said you are a geologist; it's a fascinating area around there, I should imagine. What amused me when we went there first was the shop in Lodeve selling fossils; amongst the ones on display were some trilobites from the Cambrian. When I looked at the label, I discovered they were from an exposure in the Tywi valley (between Bethlehem and Llangadog) that was a regular stopping point when I did A-level Geology in the early 1970s. I wonder how they got there?

[Focalplane]

The area around Lac du Salagou is indeed most interesting though there is nothing to do with trains!  The red rocks represent an ancient desert while there is also evidence of recent volcanoes (the same age at Cap d'Agde, roughly 600,000 years old).  Interesting how Welsh fossils ended up in Lodeve - maybe there were Welsh coal miners in Graissessac as well!

[Fat Controller]

The area around Lac du Salagou is indeed most interesting though there is nothing to do with trains!  The red rocks represent an ancient desert while there is also evidence of recent volcanoes (the same age at Cap d'Agde, roughly 600,000 years old).  Interesting how Welsh fossils ended up in Lodeve - maybe there were Welsh coal miners in Graissessac as well!

We camped 'sauvage' at Salagou for a few weeks in the summer of 1979, and then 1980; our plans of finding harvesting work having come to naught. At that point, Clermont l'Herault station still handled fruit (mainly table grapes) by rail, though the passenger service was a bus. At Lodeve (or rather just outside) a smart new passenger station had been built, which only ever saw buses. The sidings adjacent had been intended to carry uranium ore from a nearby mine; I don't know if they were ever used. 

Would it be bauxite that gave the red colour to the soil around Salagou? My recollection was that it was virtually impossible to get the staining out of one's clothes.

[Focalplane]

Salagou's red is iron staining, the bauxite has an orange/brown hue.

 

Some of the tracks still exist in the area, long after the last train ran. SNCF seems to have a policy of leaving things as they are for as long as possible, but eventually a new bypass or other improvement forces their hand. Personally I think this policy is better than the BR one of selling land off for redevelopment.

[Fat Controller]

Salagou's red is iron staining, the bauxite has an orange/brown hue.

 

Some of the tracks still exist in the area, long after the last train ran. SNCF seems to have a policy of leaving things as they are for as long as possible, but eventually a new bypass or other improvement forces their hand. Personally I think this policy is better than the BR one of selling land off for redevelopment.

The way that track can be left in situ, even if not in use, is down to the way the construction of the railways occured in the first place. In France, railways were from almost the very beginning as strategic assets of national importance; Once the government had authorised the construction of a line, via a 'Declaration of Public Utility', only the government could authorise the removal of track and associated structures, even if the railway company had ceased to provide services long before. Generally, this was only done if another use for the right-of-way was found, such as a new road, or improvements to an existing one. This applied only to railways covered by DPU; the later light railways and tramways, built under the auspicies of the Plan Freycinet, had no such protection, and so were often ripped up as soon as the services were withdrawn.

 

Thanks for the information about the iron staining around Salagou; whatever it was stayed on the clothes until they were scrapped.

 

There are a couple of books written by someone called John P Harris (one's called 'An Englishman in the Midi') which are an entertaining read; he seems to have lived in a thinly-disguised Salasc- a village where we once photographed washing our clothes in the lavoir by a coach-load of Japanese tourists...

[Focalplane]

Yesterday I visited friends nearby for lunch and made a slight detour to take some new pictures of the Graissessac site.  To set the scene, Graissessac sits in a narrow valley between hills that contain the coal deposits.  The valley runs south to join La Mare, a larger river that runs from the west and then south through a gorge.  The railway was not built up the Mare Valley because of the gorge, and tunnels were made to the east where there are additional coal deposits.  If you could travel by train today, the journey would probably start in Bedarieux (still connected to the system), travel north, then west over a spectacular viaduct and  through tunnels to emerge in the Graissessac valley at Estrechoux.  But the line did not finish there; The train would have to reverse direction at Graissessac and come back down to La Mare valley, switch to the west, over a viaduct and through a tunnel and up to a terminus at Saint-Gervais sur Mare.

 

Remnants of the viaduct at Estrechoux preserved in a car park.  Hardly visible is the tunnel portal on the branch to Saint-Gervais.

 

 

A few hundred meters away is a river bridge on the line coming in from Bedarieux.

 

 

The view from this bridge up the valley; only the chimney remains visible from here:

 

 

Drive a couple of kilometers up to Graissessac and more is revealed:

 

 

A similar view but showing the last of the open cuts in the hillside above:

 

 

As noted before, Le Direction (Management) had a fine castellated office block above the main sorting area:

 

 

Finally, the view of the sidings where the coal trucks were stored and loaded: