Train de l'Ardèche
The Train de l'Ardèche (sur la ligne du Chemin de Fer du Vivarais) is a museum railway in the French department of Ardèche . Contrary to what the name suggests, it does not touch the Ardèche river and its Gorges de l'Ardèche canyon , but passes through the equally impressive Gorges du Doux .
It has been running since 1970, with a five-year break from 2008 to 2013, on a preserved section of the Tournon – Le Cheylard railway, which was closed in 1968 . Until 2008, the museum railway was operated under the name Chemin de Fer du Vivarais (CFV), until 2004 by the association of the same name, partly on a voluntary basis. The railway has been operated commercially by the Société Nouvelle du Chemin de Fer du Vivarais since 2013 . The railway is often referred to as Le Mastrou , but the current operator only uses this name for a specific train.
From Tournon in the Rhone Valley , the meter-gauge route leads through the gorge of the Doux River to Lamastre, 250 meters higher . As a rule, trains hauled by steam locomotives of the mallet type run, but a diesel locomotive or a historic diesel multiple unit is also used more rarely . The route was 33 kilometers long until 2008, after reactivation in 2013 it will be around four kilometers shorter. The journey between the end points takes around two hours with steam traction and around an hour with the railcar. The museum is open from mid-March to mid-November.
The three- rail track between the Tournon train station and the junction at Saint-Jean-de-Muzols is remarkable, which crosses the edge of the town in two tunnels (640 and 40 meters long) and over the on a concrete bridge that replaced a 165-meter-long iron viaduct in 2005 River Doux runs. Since the railway reopened in 2013, this section has no longer been used by museum trains. The eastern end of the line is now the newly built Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols station, not far from the former Douce-Plage station.
history
The railway line from Tournon via Lamastre was opened on July 12, 1891 by the Compagnie de chemins de fer départementaux (CFD) and extended to Le Cheylard in 1903 . In Tournon, a shared station was created with the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM) and a shared three-rail track over a length of 2.2 kilometers. On October 31, 1968, the entire line was closed, and on June 14, 1969, tourist traffic between Lamastre and Saint-Jean-de-Muzols began. From February 1970, the service was back to Tournon station.
Museum traffic on the Tournon – Lamastre route was officially opened on April 18, 1970. With the 230-T E-327 and the 030-030-T 404, two steam locomotives were initially available, plus a diesel locomotive and a diesel railcar. On June 14, 1971, three people were injured at Le Garnier in a head-on collision of the railcars 316 and 214. The latter received a lower radiator grille and larger front windows during repairs. In 1973 the tracks, stations and vehicles were acquired by the CFV. In 2004 the operator became a "mixed economy company" and renamed CFTM, with the Ardèche department as the majority shareholder.
route
The starting point was Tournon station until 2008, which was operated jointly with the national railway company SNCF . The narrow-gauge railway depot was also located there . In a northerly direction, the railway ran on a three-rail track, which also represented the northern directional track of the main line (left-hand traffic). After the bridge over the Doux, the narrow-gauge track branched off to the west and followed the valley of the river.
Steam and diesel locomotives in the Tournon depot, 1998
Train with Mallet locomotive No. 413 in Tournon station
Junction at Tournon station with derailment device, looking north
CFV train with Mallet locomotive No. 414 near Lamastre, 1975
Lamastre station with a new car hall and billiard motor coach and sidecar, 2000
.jpg)
Since the reactivation of the railway in 2013, the train stations Tournon and St.-Jean-de-Muzols are no longer served. The trains begin at the newly built Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols station near the former Douce-Plage stop.
The route has several brick bridges, cuttings and at Mordane another 265 meter long tunnel. From Tournon (123 m above sea level) to Lamastre (373 m above sea level) an altitude difference of 250 meters was overcome.
Stations
- Tournon-sur-Rhône (km 0.0; 123 m above sea level; until 2008)
- Saint-Jean-de-Muzols (km 2.6; until 2008)
- Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols (since 2013)
- Douce-Plage (out of service)
- Troye (km 6.6)
- Mordane (km 9)
- Clauzel (km 11)
- Colombier-le-Vieux-Saint-Barthélemy-le-Plain (km 12.9)
- Boucieu-le-Roi (km 18.5; 276 m above sea level)
- Tincey (km 19)
- Arlebosc (km 21.6)
- Le Garnier (km 24)
- Le Plat-Empurany (km 26.1)
- Monteil
- Lamastre (km 32.6; 373 m above sea level)
2008 crisis
Forty years after the Tournon - Lamastre section was saved before it was shut down, the railway was faced with another crisis: there has been no operation since 2008, no operational steam locomotive was available and the line had safety deficiencies. The biggest problem here was the shared use of the SNCF's standard-gauge Rhone line using a three-rail track. This route only shows transit goods traffic whose operators wanted to use the narrow-gauge railway's timetable for their trains.
Operation since 2013
On February 18, 2011, the Ardèche department and the new operator, Société Nouvelle du Chemin de Fer du Vivarais , or SNCFV for short , signed an agreement on the continued operation of the museum railway. The Société Nouvelle du Chemin de Fer du Vivarais was founded by the tour operator Kléber Rossillon and the coach company Courriers Rhôdania . An investment volume of 13 million euros was planned. To the east of the town of Saint-Jean-de-Muzols, the new Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols station was built and has served as the terminus since 2013. A three-track brick vehicle hall was built in Lamastre.
Initially, a bicycle trolley service was set up: two sections, each approx. 12 kilometers long, from Monteil to Boucieu-le-Roi (“Parcours des viaducs”, since 2015) and from there to the Troye station (“Parcours des étroits”, since 2011) downhill in five-seat, open vehicles. The billiard railcars 213,214,316, the diesel locomotive "Y" and, since 2017, the former Corsican railcars X5001 and X5002 are used, which bring the draisines and their passengers to the starting point or return them to their starting point.
Since 2013 there have been steam-hauled trains again. In addition to the “Mastrou”, which runs along the entire route, the “Train des Gorges” only covers the most scenic section through the gorge from Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols to Colombier-le-Vieux – Saint-Barthélemy- le-Plain. The "Train du Marché", which goes to the market in Lamastre on Tuesdays in July and August, is pulled by the BB 040-003 diesel locomotive and stops at all subway stations.
The steam operation with a mallet - Tenderlokomotive carried out from 1903, since 2015 also a younger second locomotive is again the same type available. From mid-April to the end of September there is at least one train pulled by a steam locomotive per day; in July and August there are up to three daily steam trains on the route.
The previous terminus at Tournon-sur-Rhône was abandoned, most of the vehicle and spare parts collection in the depot there was picked up and distributed to the remaining stations on the route. The covered parking facility next to the locomotive shed in Tournon and the twelve historic vehicles parked underneath were partially or completely destroyed by fire on April 9, 2014. The track systems in the depot have been partially dismantled, some four-axle wagons preserved with tarpaulin are still waiting to be picked up. There are no longer any tracks in the former Saint-Jean-de-Muzols station either; the remaining tracks, including the three-rail section with its branches, were still there in 2015.
Steel skeleton of the wagon hall in Tournon that burned down in 2014
Tournon – St.-Jean-de-Muzols terminus, newly built in the old style
Diesel locomotive BB 040-003 and Mallet locomotive No. 403 in front of the locomotive shed in Tournon-St.-Jean-de-Muzols
vehicles
Steam locomotives
- 403: The Mallet - Tenderlokomotive with the wheel arrangement CC (French .: 030-030-T) with its former sister locomotives 401, 402 and 404-408 of the Swiss locomotive and Maschinenfabrik SLM Winterthur designed for the network of the CFD. The machine delivered in 1903 is 10.71 meters long and weighs 36.3 tons when empty. It can transport 14-car trains weighing 200 tons uphill on the winding route.
- The structurally identical locomotives 403 and 404 could be taken over by the CFV museum railway after the end of regular operation by the CFD. The driver's cab, the water tanks and the cylinder linings of each of the previously black machines were painted in different colors, in the case of the 403 in green. In the early 1990s, the 403 was given the boiler of locomotive 401, locomotive 404 was shut down in autumn 1994.
- After the takeover by the current operator SNCFV, the 403 appears again in the original black.
- 414: Locomotives 411 to 414 were also built as 030-030-T in 1932 at SACM in Graffenstaden, Alsace . They largely corresponded to the predecessor machines 409 and 410 from 1927, none of which exist anymore. Almost identical to the 403 in terms of dimensions and performance, it is outwardly more “French” than the 403 built in Switzerland.
- At the time of the CFV, the machine, also known as the “Alsacienne” (Alsatian), was partially painted chestnut brown, similar to the 403. It is now completely black again.
- In addition, the locomotives 401, 404 and 413 are available as spare parts dispensers or are parked for possible subsequent refurbishment.
Diesel locomotives
- BB 040-003: The four-axle diesel locomotive of the BB-400 series, each with an Asynchro mechanical gearbox per bogie, was built by CFD's own workshop in Montmirail and delivered in October 1963. After the cessation of traffic, it was transferred to the Chemins de fer de Provence in 1969 , where the identical machines 040-001 and 002 were already running. In 1974 it finally came to the sister locomotive 040-004 at the Chemins de fer de la Corse . In 2011 the machine running there as the BB 404 was brought back to Tournon together with the latter, and it is also presented in its original colors.
- The almost symmetrically constructed locomotive with the axle formula B'B 'rests on two two-axle bogies , it has a diesel engine with 207 hp under each of the two stems . Since it only has a fixed control panel, it may still have to be turned for the route. It is 9.81 meters long, weighs 32 tons and can go up to 40 km / h.
- The four locomotives of this series were designed to be converted for traffic on standard gauge tracks by replacing the bogies, but this was not implemented.
- Small locomotives "X" and "Y": The two locomotives with the C wheel arrangement were built in 1948 and 1949 by the CFD workshop in Montmirail on the chassis of steam locomotives.
- They are powered by a 180 hp Willème diesel engine via an asynchro gearbox. They were originally equipped with a compressed air multiple control, but this did not prove itself and was never used.
- Although they are technically completely identical, they differ externally in the arrangement of the driver's cab.
Diesel railcars
- 213, 214: The A-150-D railcars were built by Billard in Tours and delivered to the CFD network in Vivarais in 1938 and 1940, respectively. The asymmetrical bidirectional vehicles weigh 12.25 tons, have 42 seats and a luggage compartment and can pull two sidecars with an output of 150 hp .
- 314, 316: The railcars come from the CFD Charentes network. They were built by Billard between 1937 and 1939, have 32 seats and a luggage compartment and have an engine output of 100 hp. No. 314 has been out of service for a long time.
- Sidecars 3, 11, 22: matching sidecars for the billiard railcars. No. 3 is out of order.
- X 5001, 5002 as well as 2001, 2002 and 2005 (closed) 2016 ex Chemins de fer de la Corse
dare
The railway hardly has any operational original CFD passenger coaches, especially since two of them were destroyed in the fire in 2014. Instead, vehicles from the Réseau Breton could already be taken over from the CFV , the four-axle bogie cars date from the years 1891 to 1913. Several second-hand cars were acquired in Switzerland , including from the MOB and the Appenzell Railway . In the museum of the Tournon-St.-Jean-de-Muzols train station, the two-axle former living room car ASfv 1005 of the CFD from 1902 is on display.
If the weather permits, a train runs with open summer carriages. Mostly this is the "Train des Gorges".
Former Swiss passenger coaches, in front B 61 (built in 1910) of the Appenzeller Bahn, behind C 42 (formerly MOB)
Car of the former Réseau Breton, no.136 from 1909 (former saloon car) is the only one painted green
Open summer cars parked on the no longer used main line to Tournon
Trivia
The railway stations on the museum route are now the only ones that are still served in the 5,529 km² Ardèche department with almost 320,000 inhabitants. SNCF passenger trains no longer stop there, and the standard-gauge museum train, Train touristique de l'Ardèche méridionale , ceased operations in 2012. Thus, the railway bears the name Train de l'Ardèche (train of the Ardèche department) with good reason.
Web links
- Train de l'Ardèche , website of the museum railway
- Locomotives, vehicles and track
- Le Mastrou , private website with a lot of information
- Vélorail des Gorges du Doux , website of the trolley transport with photos of the billiard railcar
literature
- Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais . Presses et Editions Ferroviaires, Grenoble 1986, ISBN 2-905447-04-4 .
- François Collardeau, Pascal Bejui: Vivarais, Velay. Les trains du renouveau . La Régordane, La Roche-Blanche 2011, ISBN 978-2-906984-94-3 .
Remarks
- ↑ The tank locomotive could be purchased with five passenger cars from the Réseau Breton, which was closed in 1967
- ↑ The journey begins in both cases in Boucieu-le-Roi
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d 2015 timetable brochure for the Train de l'Ardèche
- ↑ Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais . Presses et Editions Ferroviaires, Grenoble 1986, ISBN 2-905447-04-4 , pp. 157 .
- ↑ François Collardeau, Pascal Bejui: Vivarais, Velay. Les trains du renouveau . La Régordane, La Roche-Blanche 2011, ISBN 978-2-906984-94-3 , pp. 86 .
- ↑ Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais , page 32
- ↑ Le Mastrou. Le train touristique de l'Ardèche from mastrou.com, accessed on January 31, 2015
- ↑ Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais , page 63rd
- ↑ Press release from April 2008
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated August 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Vélorail en Ardèche: Le vélorail ( Memento of the original of June 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Vélorail en Ardèche: L'autorail ( Memento of the original of October 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Train du Marché le 11 août 2015 at train-du-vivarais.com, accessed on November 7, 2015
- ↑ Le Train de l'Ardèche sur les rails at leprogres.fr, accessed on November 7, 2015
- ↑ see pictures here from September 2013: [1]
- ↑ Deux monuments historiques partent en fumée dans un incendie ( Memento of the original of July 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Pompier Magazine (French), accessed February 1, 2015
- ↑ Site visit on June 21, 2014
- ↑ a b François Collardeau, Pascal Bejui: Vivarais, Velay. Les trains du renouveau . La Régordane, La Roche-Blanche 2011, ISBN 978-2-906984-94-3 , pp. 110 .
- ↑ Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais , page 118
- ↑ BB locomotives numbers 401 to 403 CFD from 1962/63 at le-rail.ch, accessed on March 1, 2018
- ↑ cf. Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais , page 86.
- ↑ Jean Arrivetz, Pascal Bejui: Les Chemins de Fer du Vivarais , page 122 ff.
- ↑ Les autorails at trainduvivarais.pagesperso-orange.fr, accessed on November 8, 2015
- ↑ Les voitures suisses at trainduvivarais, accessed on November 8, 2015
- ^ Richard Deiss: Vane Cathedral and Sugar Beet Station . Bonn 2010, p. 55.
