Railways in france, 1980's/90's more pics added 01/2015

[Delfin]

Contrary to my last post, I have decided to bore you with some more pictures from Le Train à Vapour des Cévennes.  Apart from the excellent scenery and, of course, the steam, there is one other thing worth mentioning about this line.  They have gone to some trouble to adapt a coach for the disabled.  There is a wheelchair lift fitted to the carriage, the platforms being the typically low French affairs.  The coach itself is laid out so that the disabled person can travel either inside or out in the open.  Very well done on their part I think and certainly appreciated by my wife who is a wheelchair user.

 

Delfin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JeffP]

Those are nice, I used to like to watch the steam hauled trains cross that viaduct.

 

This preserved line really benefits from being right in the heart of tourist France, with lovely scenery. I've actually swum in the river at the point showed on photo 2.

[Delfin]

Probably the most scenic line I have travelled on in France, although I have yet to visit the Vivarais.  

 

Here are some more photographs, this time from Messac in Brittany where it was nice to see plenty of loco-hauled trains.  Sadly these are becoming less common as the non-TGV network continues to decline.  We parked at the camping car aire overnight which had a good view of the line and were able to watch trains all evening whilst sipping a glass or two.

 

Delfin

 

 

[JeffP]

Another visit to a French byway tonight, one of the CFD (Chemins de Fer Departmentales) in the Burgundy region.

 

Autorail unit 4652+8441 wait to leave Autun for Etang, August 1994. The disused goods shed can be seen in the second shot.

 

My real reason for visiting Autun was the presence there of four ex-BR class 20 locos.

Here we see 2002 stabled on the tiny four-stall 1/6th roundhouse. Note the crude refuelling facilities in centre view.

 

Closer view of 2002 which is, by now, being cleaned for further duties. Note the 2CV in the farthest stall.

 

As I was at the shed 2003 arrived from the direction of Etang with a sand train.

 

Here it is again having run round it's train.

 

Finally at Autun was this withdrawn class BB71000 "Pedalo" loco, it had no plates but the number on one end was 71005. They were called "Pedalo" because each bogie had coupling rods and the locos looked very odd in motion.

 

I got to Autun on the return homeward journey in 1994, we camped nearby and I got up early and drove into Autun to find the locos if possible.

On arrival at the station I heard the distinctive whistling and went onto the platform just in time to see 2001 leaving for  Etang with a train of sand empties.

 

I asked at the station for directions to the depot and was pointed across the lines at "le batiment blanc" (The white building), so asked how to get there.

The station master looked at me a little strangely and then said "Walk?"

 

On arrival at the shed I sought permission and photographed the solitary class 20 on shed and the withdrawn loco. I then asked where the others were likely to be, and was told "Etang".

I asked if it was possible to go and see them, and received a puzzled look, an exchange of glances between the railway men there, and the response, "Yes....but why would you want to? they are the same as those here..."

 

Surreal.........I know for certain that SNCF guys just did not understand trainspotting. One at Marseille asked me why I wrote down all the numbers, and, on being told that I ticked them off when seen, he asked "And when you've seen them all? Do you get some sort of prize?"

 

I didn't get to Etang, my wife vetoed it, and 2004 was the only one of the four I never saw....afaik she was the last in service.

 

 

[Fat Controller]

Autun was very quiet when I passed through last year. Freight traffic, such as it is, is currently in the hands of VFLI, SNCF's 'low-cost' subsiduary. My 'Itinerarie bis' to Beaujolais takes me off the autoroute at Troyes, then towards Chatillion sur Seine, where Europorte have a presence, currently dealing with cereal traffic (formerly, there was also scrap from the Carnaud- Metal Box plant and timber), then Montbard and Autun.

[ianp]

Autun eh? My mother was born and brought up there. I don't really know the place, but the station appears to be huge, and with quite a complex and varied layout, for what is a smallish town. It would make a very interesting layout. Imagine something of that size in, say, Stowmarket.

[Fat Controller]

Autun eh? My mother was born and brought up there. I don't really know the place, but the station appears to be huge, and with quite a complex and varied layout, for what is a smallish town. It would make a very interesting layout. Imagine something of that size in, say, Stowmarket.

The station's not that big; the town itself had a moment of glory as a Roman provincial capital. The Roman remains include a series of arches you can end up driving into when leaving the supermarket.. There's a quite imposing cathedral, along with some imposing public buildings. IIRC, it's twinned with Stevenage.

[ianp]

Here is a link to (an old) diagram of Autun station. http://plm1950.msts.free.fr/rail/PlanDesGaresAutun.jpg

At 16,000 the population is exactly the same as Stowmarket (I discovered from Wikipedia). I maintain it is impressively large for a small place. And thus jolly interesting.

[JeffP]

It certainly had an interesting layout at that time, just look at all those wagon turntables.

[Fat Controller]

Here is a link to (an old) diagram of Autun station. http://plm1950.msts.free.fr/rail/PlanDesGaresAutun.jpg

At 16,000 the population is exactly the same as Stowmarket (I discovered from Wikipedia). I maintain it is impressively large for a small place. And thus jolly interesting.

So that's how they served the factory across the back of the goods yard..

It almost looks as though there was a second loco shed (the three-road affair on the right at the bottom). It is connected to the line that runs along Rue Republique; a line which seems to have tracks adjacent to, but not connected to, the PLM lines; presumably some sort of narrow-gauge tramway/light railway.

Cattle/sheep traffic was evidently important, as there are two 'quai a bestiaux' at opposite ends of the station.

Thanks for posting; is there any way to enlarge the plan, as I'm struggling to decipher some of the text.

[ianp]

Pressing CTRL+ enlarges the scale on my Microsoft computer. I think you are right about the station complex containing a terminus and depot for a light railway of some sort, as well as the mainline station. The old plan is on a  page from a rambling French website devoted to the railways in that area: http://plm1950.msts.free.fr/rail/GaresAutun.html  

Very interesting with many old photos, plans and diagrams. My very limited French tells me that it was a metre gauge line that ran North West from Autun to Chateau-Chinon. and which closed in 1936.

 

This page tells you more: http://plm1950.msts.free.fr/rail/SetLChateauChinon.html

 

And if you Google Tacot Autun Chateau-Chinon you will come across quite a few French websites and Wikipedia entries about the line.

[Fat Controller]

Pressing CTRL+ enlarges the scale on my Microsoft computer. I think you are right about the station complex containing a terminus and depot for a light railway of some sort, as well as the mainline station. The old plan is on a  page from a rambling French website devoted to the railways in that area: http://plm1950.msts.free.fr/rail/GaresAutun.html  

Very interesting with many old photos, plans and diagrams. My very limited French tells me that it was a metre gauge line that ran North West from Autun to Chateau-Chinon. and which closed in 1936.

Thanks- that worked. I think the buildings on the other side of the road from the PLM shed may have been an abattoir; the line that branches off it is marked 'chute de fumier' or 'manure chute'. The drawing itself seems to be a layout diagram for the electrical engineers; there are notes all over it about different sizes of armoured cable.

Autun's a funny place; it looks as though it's just a provincial capital (which it was in Roman days, though now it's just a sub-Prefecture), but it had a coal-mining industry into the 1970s, perhaps even later, and the spoil heaps are visible to the west of the road towards Saulieu. Part of the junction to the mine, including the ground-frame, remains, but the site of the old surface buildings is now a cable factory, owned by Alcatel. For a long while, the track from the junction crossed the road into the Alcatel site, but I never saw any evidence of it being used in the 20 or so years I've used this route. 

[Pacific231G]

So that's how they served the factory across the back of the goods yard..

It almost looks as though there was a second loco shed (the three-road affair on the right at the bottom). It is connected to the line that runs along Rue Republique; a line which seems to have tracks adjacent to, but not connected to, the PLM lines; presumably some sort of narrow-gauge tramway/light railway.

Cattle/sheep traffic was evidently important, as there are two 'quai a bestiaux' at opposite ends of the station.

Thanks for posting; is there any way to enlarge the plan, as I'm struggling to decipher some of the text.

The narrow gauge railway was one of the four metre gauge lines built in the Depaterment by the Chemin de Fer d'Intérêt-local de Saone-et-Loire (two others were also built by the CFD company). It was one of many such lines built under the "Plan Freycinet" to open up rural France and ran for 49kms from Autun to Chateau-Chinon in the adjoining departement of Nievres where its terminus faced the PLM station. Here there was just a single track loco shed so the three road depot at Autun would have been the line's main MPD and workshop.

 

After crossing under the PLM line just south of Autun station, the line ran along the side of the road as far as la Petite-Verriere before heading off on its own sinuous course to Anost, Corcelles and Arleuf-the largest place on its route- before reaching Chateau-Chinon. It was opened in stages in 1901, 1904 and 1905.

 

Passenger services comprised the usual three trains in each direction a day with probably one daily goods train but it served a sparsely inhabited area and the company went into liquidation in 1924. Services were taken over by the Departement (a not uncommon situation for France's many rural light railways) but  "Modernisation" in 1932 consisted of replacing the passenger trains with road buses and the line closed completely in 1934.

 

The 1914 passenger timetable did have one curious entry, a train that ran on Autun's fair days leaving Chateau-Chinon at 03:45 and arriving in Autun at 05:31. The timetable note says that this train conveyed only second class passengers accompanying livestock and there was no return working. The six passenger trains all took about the same time (about two and a half hours!) to make the thirty mile run which suggests a separate goods train rather than Marchandises-Voyageurs (mixed trains)

 

Autun was (is?) the market town for the locality so livestock traffic would have been important.

Wagon turntables were used extensively at French stations far later than in Britain and the size of the station seems fairly typical for what was effectively a junction serving a modestly important town (Autun is a sous-prefecture) 

For passengers there are still six TER services a day to Etang but the service to Avallon was closed three years ago amid local protests. This was apparently to free the line for freight operation by an "Opérateur Ferroviaire de Proximité" (OFP) though I don't think either VFLI or CFD had any trouble running both passengers and freight on the line.

 

I visited the line and both Avallon and Autun stations a few years ago and the Chef at one of the intermediate stations showed me how the computer assisted block system (CAPI) worked. At one time there were even through coaches to Autun from Paris via Avallon.

[doctor quinn]

Yes, SMN 906 came from Société Métallurgique de Normandie and was built by Schneider in 1958. The red one ("2") is 902 from the same source (b/ns 5409 and 5413).

The SMN locos were the subject of a kitbash of a Roco NS 2200 in Continental Modeller by Andy Hart a few years ago.

 

Nick

[Fat Controller]

The narrow gauge railway was one of the four metre gauge lines built in the Depaterment by the Chemin de Fer d'Intérêt-local de Saone-et-Loire (two others were also built by the CFD company). It was one of many such lines built under the "Plan Freycinet" to open up rural France and ran for 49kms from Autun to Chateau-Chinon in the adjoining departement of Nievres where its terminus faced the PLM station. Here there was just a single track loco shed so the three road depot at Autun would have been the line's main MPD and workshop.

 

After crossing under the PLM line just south of Autun station, the line ran along the side of the road as far as la Petite-Verriere before heading off on its own sinuous course to Anost, Corcelles and Arleuf-the largest place on its route- before reaching Chateau-Chinon. It was opened in stages in 1901, 1904 and 1905.

 

Passenger services comprised the usual three trains in each direction a day with probably one daily goods train but it served a sparsely inhabited area and the company went into liquidation in 1924. Services were taken over by the Departement (a not uncommon situation for France's many rural light railways) but  "Modernisation" in 1932 consisted of replacing the passenger trains with road buses and the line closed completely in 1934.

 

The 1914 passenger timetable did have one curious entry, a train that ran on Autun's fair days leaving Chateau-Chinon at 03:45 and arriving in Autun at 05:31. The timetable note says that this train conveyed only second class passengers accompanying livestock and there was no return working. The six passenger trains all took about the same time (about two and a half hours!) to make the thirty mile run which suggests a separate goods train rather than Marchandises-Voyageurs (mixed trains)

 

Autun was (is?) the market town for the locality so livestock traffic would have been important.

Wagon turntables were used extensively at French stations far later than in Britain and the size of the station seems fairly typical for what was effectively a junction serving a modestly important town (Autun is a sous-prefecture) 

For passengers there are still six TER services a day to Etang but the service to Avallon was closed three years ago amid local protests. This was apparently to free the line for freight operation by an "Opérateur Ferroviaire de Proximité" (OFP) though I don't think either VFLI or CFD had any trouble running both passengers and freight on the line.

 

I visited the line and both Avallon and Autun stations a few years ago and the Chef at one of the intermediate stations showed me how the computer assisted block system (CAPI) worked. At one time there were even through coaches to Autun from Paris via Avallon.

I don't imagine there was a return journey for the livestock..

There haven't been any passenger services on the Avallon- Autun section for a long time; I believe there was a residual  service on the Auxerre- Avallon section until fairly recently. When I last passed through, just after the vendanges in September, the Autun- Avallon line was heavily rusted, suggesting that even freight traffic is currently not running.

[Pacific231G]

I don't imagine there was a return journey for the livestock..

There haven't been any passenger services on the Avallon- Autun section for a long time; I believe there was a residual  service on the Auxerre- Avallon section until fairly recently. When I last passed through, just after the vendanges in September, the Autun- Avallon line was heavily rusted, suggesting that even freight traffic is currently not running.

Hi Jeff

Probably a one way trip for most of them but interesting that what would normally be classified as a goods train- In France herdsmen, shepherds etc. accompanying livestock were not considered as passengers though postal workers were- appeared in the passenger timetable. Presumably this train carried farmers and their families as well as those actually looking after the animals.

 

The last passenger train, A TER,  ran from Avallon to Autun on Saturday December 10th 2011. This closure and its effects was the subject of several reports around that time but the fullest account I've found is here

http://www.gensdumorvan.fr/territoires/bing-bang-de-la-sncf-la-ligne-autun-avallon-a-ete-enterree-samedi-sans-tambour-ni-trompette.html

 

 For some years many of the services had been run by buses but at least one daily return working was still on the rails in the shape of a TER. 

When I visited the line, freight traffic consisted of wood shipped via a gare de bois in the former goods yard at La Roche-en-Brenil and stone from a quarry near there via a short private branch. There may have been another shipping point for timber elsewhere on the line. The last direct train to Paris over the line ran in September 1994 but I think by then it was only a weekly service.

 

Avallon is still- by French standards- fairly well served with trains . According to the SNCF TER Bourgogne website there are five trains from there today (a normal Friday service). The first two at 05.27 and 06.28 terminate at Cravant and connect with onward TER trains to Paris. After that the 08.39, 12.31 and 16.31 run direct to Paris-Bercy, there are also four buses each day from Avallon that connect with trains either at Cravant or, in one case, at Auxerre. 

 

The full timetable is also available on the SNCF website but though this shows journeys by bus or train separately it doesn't indicate changes of train.

[JeffP]

Well!

I thought the class 20's might get a few replies, but never imagined that Autun would excite so many people. Thanks to all who responded.

 

First shot for today is a humble shunter. one of the most numerous classes on the SNCF, Y8301 awaits it's next duty at the east end of Nice Ville station.

 

Now we are back on the CdP, and the steam loco is being prepared for it's Sunday outing. It lives at Puget Theniers, and goes up the line to Annot on Sundays. This was Saturday afternoon.

My eldest lad also photographed the loco under the trees. When he got home he entered the shot in a local photographic competition, titled "Light and shade"...and won first prize.

 

Here, three shots of the loco on arrival at Annot, where it ran round the train and is preparing for departure bback to Puget Theniers.

The loco is E327, a 2Cn4t built at Fives Lille for the Reseau Breton in 1909.

 

CdP also has E211, a 1BCh4vt, built by Henschel in 1923 for CP Portugal, but it was locked away under repair in the shed at Puget Theniers when I visited.

 

 

[JeffP]

Back on the CdP again tonight, this time at the northern terminus, Digne. Very interesting with the metre gauge and standard gauge quite often running together. Sadly, the standard gauge stuff stopped running years before my visit, which was circa 1994, there is a bus service now.

 

Narrow gauge goods crane in the yard, the hills of the Alpes de Haute Provence in the background.

 

Another view of the crane, showing the goods shed and three road engine shed behind it.

 

Different crane on the metre gauge again.

 

Railcar X303 waits to leave for nice on a sunny weekday afternoon.

 

Front end view of X303. Behind it can be seen the unpowered trailer and one of the strange little parcels/departmental trailers.

 

One of the parcels trailers stabled at Digne, XR1332.

[ianp]

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.

[JeffP]

You'll be lucky!..........

 

Tonight we are in the Aveyron and the Lozere.

 

At Millau at the end of the Gorges du Tarn, we find BB666xx series loco No.66687 stabled. It is still wearing the older blue livery. In the background of the first photo can be seen the escarpment of the "Causse Noir" where the tarn is joined by the Dourbie which comes in from the right. On warm days, there are usually para-gliders taking off and landing from the top. It stands some 600 feet above the town.

 

And down by the goods shed is Beziers allocated Y2504, out on the mainline for once. Compare with the pic at the end, which we have already seen.

 

Now in the Lozere at Severac le Chateau, (quite close to where the Aveyron River rises), we find BB9400 No. 9496 arriving with the late afternoon Beziers-Paris via Clermont Ferrand train. the train will be hauled by this loco to Neussargues where a pair of BB67400 diesels will take over.

 

Y2504 awaiting the cutters torch, or sale into industry at the rear of Beziers works, approx seven years after the photo at Millau

[Pacific231G]

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.

Hi Ian

I don't think there is a single book- not even in French- that would begin to meet that specification but for the secondaires W.J.K. Davies Minor Railways of France is a pretty thorough introduction if you can get hold of a copy. It was published in 2000 by Plateway Press (ISBN 1 871980 43 3). His earlier book French Minor Railways was published by David & Charles in 1965 and can still be found second hand. It also provides an overview though is less comprehensive but was written when many of the d'Interet General metre gauge lines such as the Vivarais, the Reseau Breton and the P.O. Correze were still open along with a few of the d'Interet Local lines both metre and standard gauge.

 

It's difficult to comprehend the sheer number of railways involved but imagine almost every British county having its own network of light railways, mostly narrow gauge, as well as all the main and branch lines of the main lines companies.

This chart, that I prepared for an article in the SNCF Society Journal, shows the sheer volume of closures of passenger services amounting to over half of the original national standard gauge network (d'Interet General IG) and all but a few hundred kilometres of the standard and narrow gauge local light railways (d'Interet local) and the metre gauge lines d'Interet General considered to be part of the national rail network. All of the surviving public metre gauge railways such as the Blanc Argent, Cerdagne, C.F. Corse and C.F. de Provence were in this category but their total length is a minute precentage of what once existed. Sadly since 2000 there have been some further standard gauge closures and closure of a short section of the metre gauge Blanc Argent.

 

These figures relate to closures of passenger services. On Narrow Gauge lines, with a few exceptions, that also meant closure to goods but a lot of the standard gauge lines, particularly the d'Interet General ones carried on with goods traffic for many more years and today RFF have a total network of just over 29 000kms of which about 8000kms are open to goods only (a few of those are being reopened for passenger services). 2000kms of the network is the new (and now not so new) high speed LGV network so a bit less than 20 000 kms of the total original rail network, national and local, that once amounted to some 60 000 route kms of railways are still open for passengers.

 

There was a series of books in French, Les Petits Trains de Jadis on narrow gauge and local standard gauge lines and Trains Oubliées on the lost lines of the national standard gauge network. These do summarise the history of each line covered with photos but these encyclopaedic volunes are long out of print, go for high prices second hand and are quite difficult to get hold of and run to a total of eight volumes.

 

 

 

.

[Focalplane]

The line of shunters at Béziers reminds me that one of them got the nickname Sarko, daubed in white paint.

[JeffP]

This is the station at La Grau du Roi, on the very western coastal edge of the Camargue.Two units are in the station, the closest being 4523.

My eldest son is wandering along the platform towards me in a colourful shirt, then aged about ten.

 

Changeable weather at Marseille St Charles, with BB9200 series No.9224, still wearing it's green livery, about to depart with a train for Bordeaux.

 

Same place, weather has faired up, and BB26000 "Sybic", No. 26042, is awaiting departure with a Grandes Lignes train to Strasbourg.

 

Dull again, and on the western side of the station BB67400 series No.67493 has brought in the train from Avignon via the coastal route.

 

Throwing it down again, Y8210 has brought in some empty stock, while a BB63000 series loco does the same behind it.

[JeffP]

 

Happy New year to all. Been away and then busy, but back to this tonight.

We are still at Marseille on a very wet day in August circa 1994, and a BB63000 loco has brought in some ecs for the next west-bound train.

 

Still pouring, and BB8205 is also on ecs duties.

 

And at 1330 by the station clock STILL pouring, while BB67542 waits to leave with the Marseille-Avignon stopping service via the coast. One one I went on, it had TWO unauthorised stops when local youths pulled the emergency brake and just got off and walked away.

 

At the same time, BB7405 leaves the station now it's ecs has been removed. It will go either to the shed at Blancarde, or to the semi-roundhouse in the fork of the Nice-Avignon lines.

 

And some time later BB22305 waits to leave with the final leg of the Strasbourg-Nice train.

 

Finally for tonight, it's dried up a bit, and BB9234 arrives from the shed to take out a train to Bordeaux.

[JeffP]

Mixed bag tonight, some have got out of order so these don't necessarily go together.

 

First off we see BB26000 No.26110 stabled in the yard at Gevry-Chambertin, south of Dijon, alongside newly liveried BB66203. The sybics were at this time being delivered and having acceptance trials via Dijon Perrigny depot. We did sample the wines while staying close by.

 

Much further south, at Nimes, BB67402 is waiting to depart east with a short train.

 

Last one from the Chemins de Fer de la Provence, and the shed/works at Lingostiere is host to the older single railcar, a newer loco T62, with another railcar inside and a fuel tanker outside. This was my only visit to Lingostiere where it wasn't baking hot.

 

Finally tonight, and we are at Sainghin-en-Weppes, SW of Lille, where a BB loco  (ex DB I think), belonging to Private Owner "Drouard" is stabled. What it was doing there I never found out. Sainghin was a remarkable place with a very varied range of loco-hauled trains, including both BB12000 and BB14000 locos, sadly all now gone. I have ONE BB12000 on video.