Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux railway line
| Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux | |||||||||||||||||||||
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 Route chain Lyon – Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux – Roanne
(since 1833) and planned route Chalons – Lyon in 1849 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux railway is the oldest railway line in France and was the first horse-drawn tramway on the European continent to go into operation on June 30, 1827 , almost three years after the concession was granted to the operator Compagnie du chemin de fer de Saint-Étienne à la Loire . The concessionaire was Louis-Antoine Beaunier . Passenger traffic was only started on March 1, 1832. Initially, the 18 km long railway was only used for freight traffic, primarily for the transport of coal from Saint-Étienne to the Loire. Today this line is part of the Clermont-Ferrand – Saint-Just-sur-Loire railway, with a slightly different route .
A major problem with this transport route was that the river below Andrézieux had such a steep gradient and corresponding current that loaded ships could travel downstream, but even unloaded ships could hardly be pulled upstream, so that almost only newly built ships departed from the port of Andrézieux. That gave the reason to build two more railway lines a little later:
- The Roanne – Andrézieux line , completed on November 15, 1833, leads north through the Loire Valley to Le Coteau near Roanne , where the navigability of the river was much better. Two English locomotives have been in service here since the first section was commissioned on August 1, 1832.
- The Saint-Étienne – Lyon railway line , on which steam traction began during the construction period in 1831 , connected the coal region with the well-developed Rhone Valley .
Since 1844 coal has been driven in the opposite direction from Andrézieux to Saint-Étienne and on to the Rhône. Steam was also introduced between Saint-Étienne and Andrézieux. For this, the company bought two steam locomotives from Schneider & Cie in Le Creusot in 1844 . For a year freight trains were pulled with steam power, passenger trains with horse power, and from 1845 all trains with steam. Over the years, the route has been extended to almost 22 kilometers.
On September 30, 1853, the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Saint-Étienne à la Loire, the Saint-Étienne – Lyon railway and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de la Loire merged to form the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Rhône à la Loire , which was already taken over on December 26th of the same year by the Compagnie du chemin de fer du Grand Central ( Great Central Railway ). On July 19, 1857, this and other large companies became the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée .
Passenger traffic to the (port) station Andrézieux was discontinued as early as 1864, freight traffic over a hundred years later in 1980. As has long been the case, the greater part of the route is part of the railway line from Saint-Étienne to Roanne .
See also
Web links
- trains.wikia: Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux (French)
- forez-info: De la Loire à Pont de l'Ane , May 18, 2007 (French)