Cauterets – La Raillère tram
The former tram Cauterets – La Raillère served a 1.8 kilometer connection in the health resort of Cauterets in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the French Pyrenees , which had nine thermal baths.
It was especially popular with spa guests and pilgrims who stayed in Lourdes . They arrived in Cauterets on the small train from Pierrefitte to visit the most important of the thermal baths there, that of La Raillère, at an altitude of 1053 meters.
The meter-gauge, double-track line was opened as Chemin de fer électrique Cauterets-La Raillère (CR) on August 2, 1897 and belonged to the Société du chemin de fer de fer de Pierrefitte à Cauterets et à Luz (PCL) . However, there was no track connection to the terminus of the Pierrefitte – Cauterets small train at the northern entrance to the village; the steep incline and a height difference of 120 meters made a continuous track connection impossible. The tram therefore had its own station in Cauterets on the esplanade on the other side of the Gave stream, called the "Gare des Oeufs" (German egg station). Trains run from here in the summer, usually every ten minutes, during the opening hours of the thermal baths.
Right from the start, the railway was operated with a direct current of 600 volts.
Although the railway from Pierrefitte to Cauterets had already ceased operations on April 1, 1949, tram traffic did not end until the concession expired in autumn 1970.
literature
- Baedeker: Sud-Ouest de la France, Leipzig 1906
- Henri Domengie: Les petits trains de jadis - Volume 7: Sud-Ouest de la France. Editions du Cabri, Breil-sur-Roya 1986, ISBN 2-903310-48-3