Nouvel-Avricourt – Bénestroff railway line

Nouvel-Avricourt – Bénestroff
Nouvel-Avricourt station building from the northeast.
Route number (SNCF) :	100,000
Route length:	34.5 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Paris – Strasbourg railway from Paris Est 409.6 Igney-Avricourt (formerly Avricourt) 283 m 409.7 Railway Igney-Avricourt – Cirey to Cirey Meurthe-et-Moselle / Moselle border, formerly France / Germany 410.8 Sânon 410.9 0.0 Nouvel-Avricourt (formerly German Avricourt) 283 m 1.4 Railway line Paris – Strasbourg to Strasbourg 3.7 Moussey 9.7 Azoudange 16.2 Gelucourt 21.3 Dieuze Salines de Dieuze 25.4 Vergaville 28.5 Guebling LGV Est européenne 32 Tunnel de Guébling (115 m) Champigneulles – Sarralbe railway from Nancy and Dépôt de Bénestroff Réding – Metz-Ville railway from Metz 34.5 101.4 Bénestroff 247 m Champigneulles – Sarralbe line to Sarralbe Réding – Metz-Ville railway to Metz and Strasbourg

The railway Nouvel Avricourt-Bénestroff was a single-track , non-electrified railway line in the department Meurthe-et-Moselle and Moselle in eastern France . The almost 35 km long route primarily had strategic tasks. Passenger traffic was discontinued as early as the late 1950s, and freight was gradually stopped until 1986. Today all tracks have been removed and the route has been partly built over with single-family houses , as in Dieuze . After all, the route was not rounded off during the construction of the crossing LGV Est européenne , but bridged ⊙ .

history

The concession to build and operate this line went in 1861 to the predecessor company Syndicat de Nancy of the Société anonyme des anciennes salines domaniales de l'Est , which was only founded in 1862 as an interest cartel. Already nine months later, on March 15, 1863, this concession was sold to the Chemin de fer de l'Est (CE), whose portfolio and provenance were better suited to this railway line. The purchase agreement was approved by the state on August 16, 1862.

The first 21 km long section was opened on November 25, 1864. The Franco-Prussian War initially prevented further construction to Bénestroff ( German  Bensdorf ) station, which was finally completed on May 1, 1882 by the Imperial General Directorate of the Railways in Alsace-Lorraine, created in 1871 . There was an important junction to the Réding – Metz and Champigneulles – Sarralbe routes , ie in all directions. At the same time, there was the Bensdorf depot in Bénestroff , which was responsible for this route.

As with the neighboring Champigneulles – Sarralbe railway line , it was in the Franco-German border area. The wedge and terminal station Nouvel-Avricourt, opened in 1852, with five platforms (German: Deutsch-Avricourt) was a border station for a long time . A supplementary agreement to the Treaty of Frankfurt resulted in a border shift in the area of ​​the train station in favor of France, which brought the district of Igney and the southern part of Avricourt to France. This enabled the Igney-Avricourt station (then: Avricourt) to be managed by the French again. In return, the French state undertook to build the border station on German territory just under a kilometer and a half from the border, which was enormous and corresponded to the typical architectural style of this time as a bosswork with a defensive appearance. The building, with its monumental main staircase, had 10 entrance doors and dozen of windows over two and a half floors. Today this building is empty. To the north-east of this representative building, a railway settlement for railway employees was built in the Gleisdreieck .

The east wing was lost in the First World War, so that today only a good half and only two of the four corner towers of its 100 meter long facade remain. Its closure in 1969 was due to the pushing back of the Franco-German border after the Second World War and the close proximity of the central Igney-Avricourt station on the Paris – Mulhouse railway line to the town center .

Although the northern part of the line between Dieuze and Bénestroff was closed to freight traffic in September 2002, there is still public interest in this section and it has not yet been de-dedicated: “Le Ligne ... bénéficient du maintien des emprises de la voie dans le Domaine public en vue de préserver la possibilité de mise en place ultérieure d'un système de transports. "

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bulletin des lois de la République française . Paris, July 1863, pp. 138–146
2. ↑ Patrice Cuny: Film on Youtube March 30, 2017
3. ↑ Bernard Vieu: Un réseau bien élagué en 2016 , Rail Passion No. 236, June 23, 2017, page 9
4. ^ Etienne Biellmann: History of the train stations. (French)