Épinal – Bussang railway line

Épinal – Bussang
Reception building of the Remiremont station with the 030T monument locomotive built by Corpet-Louvet in 1891 for the Houillères des Cévennes on the square of the resistance fighters, 2008
Route number (SNCF) :	060 000
Course book route (SNCF) :	18 (Épinal – Dinozé) and 18 7
Route length:	59.9 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	25 kV 50 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	15  ‰
Dual track :	Épinal – Arches
Legend Blainville-Damelevières – Lure railway from Blainville-Dam. Neufchâteau – Épinal railway line from Neufchâteau 0.0 Epinal 340 m 2.8 Char-d'Argent (83 m) Viaduc de Bertraménil (143 m) 3.7 Junction Saint-Laurent to Boucle de Bertraménil 5.2 Dinozé 351 m 5.5 Dinozé (74 m) 6.2 Blainville-Damelevières – Lure railway from Lure 11.5 Arches 350 m 13.9 Arches – Saint-Dié to Saint-Dié railway line 14.8 Pouxeux 367 m 15.8 Pouxeux (former train station) 16.9 RN 57 18.2 Éloyes 387 m 23.2 RN 57 (47 m) 23.3 Saint-Nabord 404 m 24.9 RN 57 (36 m) 27.3 Remiremont 389 m 27.6 Start of declassification 28.5 RN 66 28.6 Moselle (27 m) Railway Remiremont – Cornimont to Cornimont 32.8 Vecoux 404 m 34.6 Hielle Rupt 406 m 36.6 Maxonchamp 413 m 39.9 Rupt-sur-Moselle 425 m 41.3 Moselle (29 m) 44.1 Ferdrupt 454 m 47.4 Ramonchamp 473 m 49.9 Le Thillot 495 m 51.9 Eat up 510 m 55.6 Saint-Maurice (Ballon d'Alsace) 549 m 55.9 Moselle (19 m) 56.2 Junction to Wesserling (never completed) 57.4 Moselle (24m) 59.9 Bussang 602 m Tunnel de Bussang or T. d'Urbès (4,060 m drilled, 8,287 m planned) Saint-Maurice – Wesserling railway line (unfinished)

The railway Epinal-Bussang is a partly twin-track electrified railway line in the French Lorraine , only 27.5 km are open to traffic by the km of the original 60th

history

The Chemin de fer de l'Est (CE) applied for the construction. On November 10, 1864, the first section from Épinal to Remiremont was put into operation. Due to the war, the further construction to Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle was delayed by 15 years until November 7, 1879. In the course of nationalization, the CE was dissolved in 1937. The route was transferred to the newly created SNCF .

The further construction of this line belongs - like 180 others - as number 29 to the railway lines mentioned in the so-called Freycinet Plan in 1879 , which were to be built as strategic railways . It said: "Extension of the Remiremont line from St. Maurice-sur-Moselle to Bussang". Due to the state support for this project, the remaining section was ready for operation on October 18, 1891 after just under two years.

Infrastructure

Branch at Épinal

Remiremont station before electrification with class X 4300 multiple units , 1987

There are some notable structures along the way. A few kilometers after the start in the municipal area of ​​Épinal, district Char-d'Argent, and Dinozé at the branch to the Blainville-Damelevières-Lure railway line, topographical difficulties had to be overcome when building the line. Several hills that rise up to 140 meters above the level of the neighboring Moselle, namely the Bois-des-Coteaux St.-Laurent and the Bois de Rainjuménil , could only be conquered without crossing with complex high-rise structures. The 4.1 km long Raccordement de Dinozé was built to create cross-free traffic routes . The reason for this long distance is the angle of incline, which was not allowed to exceed 10 ‰.

Initially, only the Raccordement de Dinozé was created, but it turned out that meaningful train crossings could not be guaranteed, which is why an extension was made with the Raccordement de Saint-Laurent . For this purpose, a 2.1 km long connecting route, the so-called Bertraménil loop , was planned around part of the local location of Saint-Laurent , which also required several bridge structures. Here the gradient of 14 ‰ could not be prevented.

This very complex construction was only used for a short time. However, history showed that the bridges were considered important on all sides.

Military trains only traveled this route for barely a year before retreating French troops blew up the central arch of the Viaduct de Taverne in June 1940 . Shortly afterwards, advancing German troops bombed the Bertraménil viaduct to prevent the retreat of the remaining French. Shortly afterwards, the Germans temporarily rebuilt this viaduct before the Americans destroyed it again in 1944. The United States Army also repaired the damage, but in an unusual way. They filled up part of the ground in order to make the connection with an auxiliary structure. It wasn't until 1948 that it was restored to the way it was originally. In 1959 it was recognized that with the friendly relations of German-French relations , the continuation of this strategic path was no longer in keeping with the times. The maintenance of these two branches was discontinued and dismantled a little later. The routes are still clearly visible today and most of them are accessible.

Tunnel de Bussang

Information board on the tunnel on the Urbès side.

Completed viaduct of the approach route to the Tunnel d'Urbes

This tunnel would have been the longest in France at the time and should provide a more direct connection to Mulhouse-Ville train station . He would have crossed the border between the departments of Vosges and Haut-Rhin . At Wesserling , the Lutterbach – Kruth line would have been encountered, and after about 29 km it would reach the Strasbourg – Basel line , where the Mulhouse-Ville station is 8 km away.

Just ten days after the armistice at the end of the First World War , an initiative of the city of Saint-Dié was reminded of this almost 7 km long Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines tunnel, which had already been planned with the construction of the Sélestat – Lesseux-Frapelle railway line . Construction began in April 1919 and was completed on October 21, 1928. The 31 km long route went into operation in early August 1937.

After such a large railway project in the Central Vosges promised success, the communities in the southern Vosges also became active in order to get "their" connection through the main ridge of the Vosges, which runs in north-south direction . The short connection from Remiremont over the Bussang Pass to Mulhouse promised good returns and was benevolently supported by most of those responsible. Funding also came from the Remiremont Chamber of Crafts and the most important, business-related newspaper there, L'Industriel Vosgien . Railway projects that were supposed to establish a connection between the original territory of France and the areas conquered by the Germans were seen as politically charged by the population as a government obligation. If a required connection fell by the wayside, popular anger boiled up.

From the beginning, the tunnel was to have two tracks and a maximum speed of 90 km / h with a maximum gradient of 8.5 ‰ should be enabled. On the eastern side near Urbès , a 1 km long ramp was heaped up with the excavated material. The company Vandewalle & Borie was responsible for the construction. It had been awarded the contract because at 87 million francs it was significantly cheaper than the 125 million francs estimated by the state.

1,100 people worked on the construction site and were housed in barracks not far from their place of work in Urbès. “The given reasons for closing the construction site: the company was confronted with technical problems very quickly. The given reasons for slowing down the work on the construction site at first and a little later to finally give it up include: the big difference in the gradient between the Vosges and Alsace sides, strong water penetration, very hard rock, etc. would also have caused significant expenses. The question of whether or not such arguments were justified remained open. In any case, as early as 1935, work on the construction site was progressing more slowly, on the pretext that the costs were too high; the contract with the company was canceled. On the planned length of 8,287 m, 4060 m on the Alsatian side and barely 300 m on the western side of the Vosges were finally drilled. ”In 1935 the company Vandewalle & Borie was bankrupt because it obviously completely underestimated the costs and a possible explosion of work - and had hidden material costs from their calculation.

Web links

Commons : Épinal – Bussang railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Carnet de profils plans de gare, 1962 , route map of the SNCF
2. ↑ N ° 8168. Loi qui classe 181 lignes de Chemins de fer dans le réseau des Chemins de fer d'inteérêt general. In: Bulletin des lois de la République française , Paris 1879, Imprimerie nationale, page 7
3. ↑ Loi qui class 181 lignes de Chemins de fer dans le réseau des Chemins de fer d'intérêt general les lignes dont la désignation. Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, réglements, et avis du Conseil d'Etat. Jean-Baptiste Duvergier, 17th-18th centuries Jul 1879, page 272
4. ↑ Route volume from the route plan booklet of the SNCF , 1962
5. ↑ Description of two branches at Epinal-Bertramenil on Histoires Ferroviaires
6. ↑ Le noeud d'Épinal-Bertramenil on Histoires Ferroviaires
7. ^ Raphaël Parmentier: The Urbis tunnel, a railway construction site that was never completed, 1932–1935 . Comprehensive document about the construction of this section of the route with numerous photos, including contemporary ones, 2017.
8. ↑ Le tunnel ferroviaire inachevé d'Urbès . 29 January 2013