Sète tram

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Railcar with an open sidecar at Fort Saint-Pierre

The Sète tram was operated by the Compagnie des Tramways de Cette (CTC) . It was a subsidiary of the company Omnium Lyonnais de Chemins de fer et Tramways .

history

The port city of Sète , which was officially called Cette until 1928, is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the Hérault department in the Occitanie region . Here the CTC opened an electric tram on January 23, 1901, when the city had around 33,000 inhabitants.

In addition to a main axis that ran along the Canal de Cette from north to south, there were also branches, including a. to the train station where the major Midi and PLM railway companies met.

network

The meter-gauge network comprised a total of four lines and was 8.6 kilometers long:

  • 1. Train station - Mole St. Louis (2.1 km)
  • 2. Les Halles – La Peyrade (3.4 km)
  • 3rd stock exchange barracks - from 1904 to Métairie - (2 km)
  • 4. Mole St. Louis-Corniche (1.7 km)

The network was operated with 600 V direct current, the power station and the depot were at the La Peyrade terminal. 13 two-axle railcars and 7 sidecars were available for traffic.

As the city is surrounded by the sea and canals, the route network included five swing bridges. This made operational management much more difficult. For this reason too, tram traffic was shut down in December 1933.

literature

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