Béziers tram

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Tram on the Place de la République (before 1914)

The Béziers tram was operated by the Compagnie des Tramways Electriques de Béziers et Extensions - TEB .

history

The TEB opened an electric tram at the beginning of 1901, when the city had around 52,000 inhabitants.

There had been a standard-gauge horse - drawn tram on the road via Sérignan to the seaside resort of Valras-Plage since 1879 . The end point in Béziers was initially on the right bank of the Orb river at Place d`Espagne, because the route could not be brought closer to the city center due to the steep inclines.

Nevertheless, the TEB company was forced to sell the company to the city of Béziers in October 1931. In the following years, this switched the entire city network to bus operation.

Only the stretch to the Valras lido survived the Second World War. Their terminus had been moved to Platz der Republik in the city center. When a renewal of the material became inevitable, operations were shut down on October 31, 1948.

network

The meter-gauge network of electric trams reached a length of 23 kilometers. It consisted of the 13 km long overland line to Valras, which had been re-gauged and electrified, and another five city lines, the junction of which was the Place de la République. The station of the southern railway company and the northern station of the local railway company des Hérault ( Compagnie des chemins de fer d'intérêt local du département de l'Hérault ) were served:

Overland train: Place d'Espagne – Sérignan – Valras-Plage

City lines:

  • a) Place d'Espagne – Place Garibaldi – Allées Paul Riquet – Nordbahnhof
  • b) Place de la République - Vineyard Garden (Moulins)
  • c) Südbahnhof (Midi) –Avenue du Midi –Place de la République – Avenue Gambetta – Südbahnhof
  • d) Market hall - Allées Paul Riquet - workshop of the southern railway
  • e) Südbahnhof – Markthalle – Schlachthof

22 two-axle railcars and 24 sidecars - six of them four-axle - were available for traffic. The depot was on the road to Sérignan.

The annual number of passengers of over two million fell after the First World War to about 722,000 in 1928.

The network was therefore reduced to the overland railway and three city lines:

Overland railway: Südbahnhof – Sérignan – Valras-Plage

City lines:

  • a) Südbahnhof – Albert I / Schlachthof
  • b) Stadtgarten – Boulevard de Strasbourg
  • c) Ring line: Südbahnhof – Liberté – Markthalle – Südbahnhof

literature

  • Jean Robert: Histoire des transports dans les Villes de France. Neuilly-sur-Seine 1974.
  • Karl Baedeker: Southern France. Leipzig and Paris 1907.

Web links

Commons : Tram Béziers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d René Courant: Le temps des tramways . Éditions du Cabri, Menton 1982, ISBN 2-903310-22-X , p. 20 .