Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni Decauville Railway

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni
Mallet- type Tubize locomotive delivered by Decauville to the port of Saint-Laurent
Route length:	18 km
Gauge :	600 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend 0 Saint-Jean-du-Maroni 18th Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni

The Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni Decauville Railway connected the prison camp at Saint-Jean-du-Maroni with the port of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in north-west French Guiana .

Route

Railway station in Saint-Laurent.

The 18 km long route with a gauge of 600 mm ran along the Maroni River in northwest French Guiana . The Saint-Laurent train station, of which only the metal frame remains today, was a large, simply built warehouse that was covered with corrugated iron to accommodate the passenger cars.

history

Decauville Railway on the Allée des Bambous

The line was built from 1890 for 40,000 francs per kilometer and completed in 1897. A one-way trip took about five hours. There were frequent derailments and underwashing of the track bed. The guards of the prison camp used the passenger trains for weekend trips to Saint-Jean.

Rail vehicles

For the steam operation of the narrow-gauge railway, new Decauville locomotives as well as open-sided summer wagons of the type KE were used, which had been demonstrated on the Decauville railway at the Paris World Exhibition (1889) :

No.	Construction year	design type	Surname	Remarks
N ° 65	1888	B n2	Saint-Jean	5 t
N ° 67	Around 1888	B n2t	Chestnuts	5 t
N ° 161	Around 1892	B'B n4vt Mallet	Tumuc-Humac	An identically constructed mallet locomotive, 9.5 t unladen weight, 12 t operating weight, suitable for an 8% gradient, radii of 20 m and rails with 9.5 kg / m.

There were also small two-axle carts that were driven like a punt by two convicts with a pole each. These were available to the administrative staff of the prison camp and their families.

See also

• Saint-Élie light railway
• Decauville railway of the Crique Anguille camp
• Marowijne Company Railway in Suriname

Web links

Commons : Decauville railway Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Marine Coquet: Vivre à Saint-Jean-de-Maroni capitale du bagne à statut unique 1936–1949. Mémoire de Master 2009/2010 de l'école des hautes études en sciences sociales. P. 20
2. ^ ^{A b c} Henri-Marie-Pierre Berryer: Chapitre 1. La Guyane. Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. Sept mois au bagne (1931) . In: Documents relatifs à l'histoire pénitentiaire.
3. ↑ Terminals on OpenStreetMap
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Dennis Lamaison: Quand la Guyane voulait son chemin de fer.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Thomas Kautzor: Prison Railways in French Guiana,, 2014.
6. ^ H. Paur: Innovations in Locomotive Construction: Lecture. Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Volume 15/16 (1890), Issue 13.
7. ↑ Kerr Stuart Engravings.