Toulouse – Bayonne railway line
The 321 km long railway line from Toulouse to Bayonne is an important connection in southwest France . In the mountainous terrain of the Pyrenees , great differences in altitude are overcome here, it is one of the steepest French routes. The line was completed in 1867 and has been electrified since 1930. Between kilometers 93.6 and 103.9, the maximum speed is 160 km / h, on many other sections you are only allowed to drive between 100 km / h and 140 km / h.
history
On October 23, 1856, the public benefit of the route was established by an imperial decree. The concession to build was granted to the company Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi et du Canal latéral à la Garonne by the State Ministry of Transport on August 1, 1857 and confirmed by a further decree on the same day. In 1860 the contract was transferred to the Compagnie du Midi . The engineer Colomès de Juillan suggested running the route via Tarbes instead of Auch and was supported in this matter by Napoleon III's Secretary General Achille Fould. A major advantage of a route through the Haute-Garonne department was the opening up of the thermal baths in the Pyrenees, which could be further developed in this way. The eastern section from Toulouse to Montréjeau was commissioned from 1861–1862, the western section between Pau and Bayonne 1863–1864 and the central section from Montréjeau via Tarbes to Pau 1866–1867.
The entire line was initially single-track before being expanded to double- track between Toulouse Puyoô from 1869 to 1900 . Because of the steep gradients of up to 33 ‰ and the lack of coal in the region, the Compagnie du Midi pushed ahead with the electrification of the line. Under the direction of the engineer Jean-Raoul Paul, the line began to be electrified with 12 kV -16.66 Hz alternating current. When, at the request of the military, a government resolution stipulated the standardization of the power grid to 1500 volts direct current, the company's plans had to be changed: On October 3, 1922, the overhead line installed in 1913 on the route from Pau to Tarbes was converted to the new voltage, exactly one A year later, the section from Tarbes to Montréjeau, installed in 1914, was converted. The overhead line from Montréjeau to Boussens was operated from the beginning in April 1924, from Boussens to Toulouse in July 1924 and from Pau to Puyoô on January 2, 1925. The electrification was completed on the remaining section from Puyoô to Bayonne in 1930 .
During the armistice in 1940, the border between free and occupied France ran through the Orthez train station, where all trains of the German occupying army had to take a break for half an hour. The line survived the Second World War without major damage.
While freight traffic has been steadily declining, as has been the case in the entire French railway network, passenger traffic has been particularly reviving recently, especially since some TGVs have been running on the route since the 1990s. Four return journeys by express train are offered every day. The tangential connections of the former express trains in southeast France, however, have been completely discontinued. In 2004, the section between Portet-Saint-Simon and Muret was switched to automatic operation to increase the capacity of the Toulouse S-Bahn line D.
Capvern steep ramp
With the steep ramp Rampe de Capvern , the route reaches 196 meters near Tournay to a height of 596 meters near Capvern. With a length of 8 kilometers, the gradient is 33 ‰. This is why some passenger trains here also need an additional locomotive to help them travel uphill. Since this is one of the steepest sections in the French route network, new vehicles are tested on the steep ramp during the approval process.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bulletin des lois de l'Empire Français: N ° 4994 - Décret impérial qui approuve la convention passée, August 1, 1857, pour la concession de chemins de fer à la Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi et du Canal latéral à la Garonne . Ed .: Imprimerie Impériale XI 8th Paris August 1857, p. 544 .
- ↑ A short report about the rampe de Capvern. Retrieved April 29, 2016 .