Rodez tram

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
disused tram
Tramways de Rodez
image
Ce 2/4 No. 3 on the Place d'Armes in front of the cathedral
Basic information
Country FranceFrance France
city Rodez
opening August 15, 1902
Shutdown 5th July 1920
operator Société anonyme des tramway de Rodez
Infrastructure
Route length 3.8 km
Gauge 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system 550 V
business
Lines 3
Network plan

The tram Rodez , French Tramways de Rodez , connected Rodez , the capital of the Aveyron département in what is now the French region of Occitania , with its train station about two kilometers away on the routes of the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi (MIDI) and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans (PO).

history

Postcard with the tram at the St-Cyrice junction (1917)

The Compagnie des tramways de Rodez opened on 15 August 1902, a single-track 2.2 km long route from the station to the intersection of Saint-Cyrice. On January 3, 1903, it could already be extended by 1.6 kilometers and now ended at the Palais de Justice .

The meter-gauge route had several switches and was electrified with 550 V direct current . The tram was supposed to provide a connection to every train arriving at the station, which is why particularly large railcars were procured so that passengers could be transported in one carriage together with their luggage. When there was a particularly high volume of traffic, the luggage was carried in a freight motor vehicle behind the passenger motor vehicle. It was also expected that up to 60,000 tons of goods would have to be transported annually .

The supervisory authority judged the large railcars to be too heavy and therefore too dangerous to operate on the steep stretches of the tram. Although they asked the company to procure smaller, lighter two-axle railcars, they still gave the motor cars the operating license until the smaller ones were delivered.

In 1903, the two two-axle railcars that had been ordered were delivered, but the reliably working large railcars were allowed to remain in traffic. Two sidecars from Jules Weitz from Lyon followed in 1917 . Five goods motor cars were used for freight traffic . All were at home in the depot on Avenue du Maréchal Joffre near the train station, where the power station for the power supply of the tram was also located. Two 150 HP piston steam engines worked in it , each with a 100 kW generator feeding the energy into the overhead line network of the tram.

Despite the improvements to the route to the station in 1912 and the extension to the market, which opened in 1913, the tram's financial situation was poor because there were no passengers. After World War I , the economy did not recover and traffic fell even more. In view of the poor financial development, the city decided to stop operating the tram on July 5, 1920.

Route network

The route from Rodez train station at 534 m above sea level to the cathedral at 626 m above sea level had to overcome a height difference of 92 m over a length of 1532 m. This resulted in a mean gradient of 60 ‰, with even 100 ‰ being reached over a length of 20 m. The vehicles were therefore equipped with a claw brake based on the Réal system.

In order to avoid the steep route through avenue de Bordeaux, a new route with a lower gradient was built in 1912, leading east from the station, making a sharp turn at the Quatre Saison junction into avenue de Paris and past the cemetery to the Saint junction -Cyrice led. The claw brakes were no longer necessary. On January 3, 1913, the extension of the line from the Palais de Justice to the covered market at Place du Bourg went into operation.

vehicles

Railcars supplied by Schlieren and Oerlikon

In the beginning, three railcars with maximum bogies were available, which had been built by the Swiss Wagons and Elevator Factory Schlieren (SWS) and had electrical equipment from the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon (MFO). They were the first tram cars in France with closed platforms. There were 22 seats in the interior, 33 to 38 standing places on the two end leaf forms. A 38 hp engine was installed in each bogie. The driving switches on the platforms had four speed levels with traction motors connected in series, three driving levels with traction motors connected in parallel, and six braking levels, whereby the starting resistor was used as a braking resistor . After the tram was discontinued, the railcars were sold to the Clermont-Ferrand tram in 1922 , where they were in use until the 1950s.

literature

  • Jean Robert: Histoire des transports dans les Villes de France . Neuilly-sur-Seine 1974.
  • Henri Somach: Les tramways électriques de Rodez . In: Le Génie civil . December 27, 1902 (French, BnF Gallica ).

Web links

Commons : Tram Rodez  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
  • Le tramway de Rodez. In: Les chemins de fer miniers de Mondalazac et Cadayrac. Jean Rudelle, 2015, accessed February 1, 2020 (French).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Henri Somach, p 129
  2. ↑ a b Rodez. (No longer available online.) AMTUIR, archived from the original on March 28, 2012 ; accessed on February 1, 2020 (French).
  3. ↑ Henri Somach. Usine génératrice. P. 132
  4. ↑ Henri Somach. Frein de sûreté p. 131
  5. ↑ Henri Somach. Matériel Roulant. P. 130
  6. ↑ Henri Somach. Equipement électrique des voitures. Pp. 130-131
  7. ↑ Jean Robert