Decauville railway of the Maréchaux quarries

Decauville railway of the Maréchaux quarries
Voie ferrée Decauville de la carrières de Maréchaux

Decauville Locomotive Yvette Portable track and lightweight bridges in the quarry

Route

Route length:

6.447 ⁽¹⁸⁸⁵⁾ km

Gauge :

600 mm ( narrow gauge )

Legend

		Truck reloading device ( Estacade )
		Standard gauge train station Les Essarts-le-Roi
		Les Essarts-le-Roi light railway stop
		Along the border of Auffargis
		Pont-Vert in the northwest
		Maréchaux building in Senlisse
		Grand-Moulin in the northeast
		Garnes in the southwest

The Decauville railway of the Maréchaux quarries ( French Voie ferrée Decauville de la carrières de Maréchaux ) was a 6.447 km long field railway from Les Essarts-le-Roi to Senlisse in France operated from 1885 to 1930 with Decauville steam locomotives .

history

The Maréchaux quarries were rented to the state until self-operated from 1879 to meet the needs of paving stones in the city of Paris after the Marcoussis quarries , which had operated from 1855 to 1875, ran out. The Maréchaux deposits were excavated in three quarries that could be reached via three branch lines: Pont-Vert in the north-west, Grand-Moulin in the north-east and Garnes in the south-west.

A horse-drawn tram was operated there as early as 1881 . From 1885 the paving stones, millstones, gravel and sand were transported to Essarts-le-Roi station on the Paris - Le Mans railway line on a 6.447 km long Decauville field railway with a gauge of 600 mm . It essentially followed the straight forest road Cinq Cents Arpents and crossed the standard-gauge railway on a steel bridge (Pont Artus) that is still preserved today to a reloading device on trucks for onward transport by road. It was one of the first field railways on which Decauville steam locomotives were used. From 1887 onwards, tipping trucks and portable tracks replaced the wheelbarrows previously used in quarries.

Quarries

Pont-Vert

Pont-Vert (green bridge) was the largest quarry in the Maréchaux deposit. There were three funiculars with a gradient of 25 to 30%: the middle one for the downhill descent of the empty carts and the outer one for the uphill drive of the loaded carts. The winches were driven by a winch that was fed by a 25 HP steam engine until 1908, which also supplied compressed air, electricity and the energy for the machine tools in the workshops. In 1914 a new system with two 25 HP steam engines was put into operation.

Grand Moulin

The Grand-Moulin quarry was less than 500 meters east of the Les Maréchaux buildings. The winches on the sloping plains of this quarry were initially powered by a locomobile and then by two steam engines.

Yarn

The Garnes quarry was northeast of the Les Maréchaux building. The exploitation of this small 3 hectare deposit began in 1912, for which the light railway was extended.

Procurement and operating costs

In its heyday, the field railway transported 30,000 t of millstones and 750,000 paving stones per year. The company employed 230 people in the quarries and 20 people for the light railroad operations. The transport volume over the years was as follows:

year	1885	1886	1887	1888	1889	1890
Number of trains	542	617	1,336	1,709	1,071	1,494
Freight transport in tons	9,303	12,457	30,010	44.151	31,154	31,427

The transport costs were around 5 francs per ton. More than 50 tons per day could be transported on the almost 10 km long route. The construction and procurement costs for the 9 km long route including a locomotive and 30 wagons on an existing forest road were F 123,000 .

Rail vehicles

Passenger car in the cobblestone depot

In 1905 there were two steam locomotives each weighing 6 tons, 32 lorries with a total weight of 3 tons each and two passenger cars. There were also 50 freight cars. These were either V-shaped tilting lorries made of sheet steel for the transport of bulk goods such as gravel and sand or platform wagons for transporting the paving stones of the quarry.

In 1917, the quarry manager's report listed the following transportation equipment:

1 Decauville locomotive, type Mallet System, with an operating weight of 12 tons
2 Decauville locomotives with an operating weight of 6 tons
2 passenger cars with 10–12 seats each
31 freight cars with a total weight of 3 tons each
11 km of 600 mm track with a weight per meter of 9.5 kg / m
2 three-way turnouts
27 points

For the material transport there were also:

76 tilting lorries with a capacity of 500 liters each
50 tilting lorries with a capacity of 300 liters each
3 km of 600 mm track with a meter weight of 7 kg / m and 4.5 kg / m

However, the same report states that part of the tipping lorries, all means of transport and the railway connecting the quarry to Les Essarts station were confiscated and removed by the military authorities in August 1914, so that all transport and traffic have become impossible since then.

No.	Construction year	design type	Gauge	Empty weight	Service weight	Surname	Remarks
		B n2t	600 mm				Closed horse-drawn carriage, 10 seats, 2 platforms
		B n2t	600 mm	1.050 t			Sideways open horse-drawn carriage, 12 seats, 2 platforms
0023!N ° 23		B n2t	600 mm	5 t	6th t	Yvette
0052!N ° 52	1887	B'B n4v Mallet	600 mm	9.5 t	12 t	L'Avenir , later Sergent Bobillot	Tubize 687/1887, for 8% incline, radii of 20 m and rails with 9.5 kg / m suitable. This locomotive was slightly different from the locomotives demonstrated on the Decauville Railway at the Paris World's Fair of 1889 .
0309!N ° 309		B n2t	600 mm	5 t		Yveline	New class 3, identical in construction to the locomotive preserved in the Pithiviers Museum.
		B n2t	600 mm	5			Progrès series 5 t