St. Avold tram

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Car number 2 of the Sankt Avold tram

The former Sankt Avold tram was one of the smallest tram operators in what is now France . It was located in the industrial town of Sankt Avold in Lorraine , today Saint-Avold in the Moselle department . The responsible transport company was the St. Avolder Strassenbahn company .

history

At the beginning of the 20th century, the small town belonged to the Forbach district in the German state of Alsace-Lorraine and had almost 4,000 inhabitants; in addition there were around 2,500 soldiers from the Prussian garrison who were stationed there.

The distance to the station of the Saarbrücken - Metz ( Forbacher Bahn ) state railway, which opened in 1851 and where some D and express trains also stopped, was almost three kilometers, so that the desire for a modern means of transport arose. The city had a single-track electric train built from the market square to the train station in a length of 2.9 kilometers in meter gauge - mostly on its own railway body .

The operation was opened on February 7, 1910 with two railcars and two trailer cars , which were reinforced by a further railcar at the end of the year. The transport offer of around 20 journeys a day was well received; In addition to people, the railway also carried mail and, during the First World War , other goods to a small extent.

When Lorraine came to France after the war in 1919, the railway was placed under state administration for a few years. At that time, the "Tramway de Saint-Avold" suffered increasingly from strong competition from bus lines.

On September 1, 1939, due to the beginning of the Second World War, operations were discontinued and after some time replaced by a bus service. The German administration, which ruled Lorraine from 1940 to 1944, ordered the reopening of the tram. This was in operation again from October 1, 1943 to September 23, 1944. Then the end of the railway came, which represented a special feature in that it was operated not with direct current , but with single-phase alternating current (750 to 850 volts).

A renovation would have been possible, but the city council found it more economical to keep a bus connection. In 1947 he decided to shut down the railway for good; the vehicles could be sold to the "Gesellschaft für Straßenbahnen im Saartal" in Saarbrücken.

literature

  • Richard Lutz: The alternating current tram from St. Avold , tram magazine number 71, Stuttgart, February 1989
  • Henri Domengie / José Banaudo: Les petits trains de jadis - Est de la France , Breil-sur-Roya 1995