French Metre gauge, a differing picture

Voie Etroite No. 264, picked up during a short visit to Normandy, paints a very different picture of the Baie de Somme and Velay operations.

As far as the Baie de Somme is concerned, the workshops are busy with all the maintenance works involved in a busy operation. Carryings reached 140,000 by the end of August and works to restore the turntable at Cayeux, disused for many years, are underway. Indeed traffic on the Cayeux line appears to be increasing.

It is much sadder on the VFV. A visit revealed no more than 70 passengers of whom 20 or so were FACS members. The local authority is pecking away at the route for conversion into a "green cycleway". It's dangerous for someone with imperfect French like myself to "read between the lines" but the impression gained is that the local authority is getting rather fed up with the railway, which has been going for a long time now and feels cyclo tourism is likely to produce a better ratio of tourist euros to expenditure than the railway does.

A considerable contrast between the two operations, which have been going for roughly the same time.

PH

 

Regarding your comments regarding the Velay Express operated by the Association of Railroads Velay (ELV), I've had a quick view of their website. The website is up-to-date with recent news, and also informs visitors of their recent achievement in having successfully returned Mallet steam locomotive No.101 to service, as well as reporting the recent and planned PW works for the winter season. It further states that the association now has nearly 200 members, many of whom actively involved in maintenance and restoration of the track and rolling stock. Having said that, most organisations are unlikely to publish negative aspects of what may be happening.

I don't think its unreasonable that the Baie de Somme does attract far more passengers. The railway is situated along the English Channel coastline, which will undoubtedly attract more visiting tourists than the Velay Express that is located inland.

Chris

 

Would not disagree with a word of this. I am familiar only with the Baie de Somme and my impressions of the Velay setup come solely from photographs and videos. The latter railway comes across strongly as being akin to the Cayeux branch of the C.F.B.S. when I visited it several years ago; in other words somewhat woebegone and a considerable contrast to the rest of the system. Tourists are less likely than gricers to favour woebegone. However the Cayeux line has been fortunate to gain access to financial and labour resources.

PH

 

Just to say that, according to Facebook, the CFBS finished the season having carried more than 180,000 passengers, which is a record. According to "a spokesman" reported in a local newspaper, this is attributed to favourable weather and better connections (presumably by rail) with places such as the Pays de Bray and the Belgian border area.

Lancheres, on the Cayeux line, is to receive crossing barriers. It has already been smartened considerably and has returned to use as a regular passing place on peak days.

Paul H.

 

French railway preservation, at least in my experience, is usually ephemeral, unreliable and rather disappointing. However, the CFBS appears to be in a different league. We spent most of last week showing our grandson coastal Normandy and the family authorities had imposed a ban on railway visits, but on the way back to Calais on Friday I managed a detour to St. Valery-sur-Somme, ostensibly to show the g/s where William the Conc. embarked to conquer England. To our surprise, the CFBS were running a two-train steam service and my only regret was that we hadn't enough time to travel on it. Both the St. Valery and le Crotoy trains were well loaded, though this was not surprising, given that the unseasonably warm weather meant that St. Valery was heaving, with hardly a parking place to be had. Still, there was a consolation; we arrived at Noyelles to watch the two steam locos run round their trains and as they left, a Paris-bound diesel loco-hauled express roared through on the main-line while a modern streamlined DMU came in in the other direction- all that in one camera shot! Anyway, it was sufficiently impressive to convince us that we must return.
Incidentally, the station car park at le Crotoy contained a significant number of British and Belgian cars.

 

Indeed. Pictorial and video evidence suggests the CFBS is comparable with the best British heritage lines and less inflicted with operating staff dressing up and fake "luggage" than many of them.



PH

 

You mean, the staff and stations are indistinguishable from SNCF lines in rural areas and hence wouldn't be what we in the UK would recognise as a "heritage railway" - in which case,(i would agree (SNCF staff have more identifiable uniforms from memory)

Steven

 

So what do you suggest UK heritage railway staff wear, t-shirt and sandals?

 

Broadly yes.

Paul H

 

No I don't and I think you know perfectly well I don't! Enough uniform to identify railway staff as such, plus well looked after, authentic pattern equipment and stations are what I had in mind. All too often "heritage" railways" are overdone and give the air of T.V. costume dramas which rarely convince.

PH

 

May not convince you and other rivet counters but the uniforms of yore are as much part of railway history as the locos, rolling stock etc. Nothing wrong IMO in seeing the Horsted Keynes stationmaster in full LBSCR uniform or the driver of the SECR C Class in Edwardian garb.

 

I was certainly impressed by the general appearance and atmosphere at the CFBS last week. Staff were dressed sensibly, i.e. they looked as if they were working on a French minor railway, rather than at a major city terminus on a Royal visit day, as is often the case on British heritage lines. There was also a refreshing absence of junk on the platforms and, indeed, everywhere else. It really looked like a proper working railway (as, indeed, it was) and I enjoyed that rare impression of being transported back to the 195os.

 

Actually I am the very reverse of a rivet counter, or what ever the equivalent is for uniforms (a button counter perhaps.) Just show a reasonably authentic train (i.e. no 4-6-2's hauling five corridors including buffet cars on supposed branch lines) and don't pretend that 21st. century staff are somehow transported by time machine from the 19th. century. It is not a T.V. costume drama and those don't always get it right either!

Returning to the CFBS they don't present their staff as being transported from the Belle Epoch but they are perfectly recognisable for what they are. In one respect only are they perhaps a bit "retro". Just about nowhere else in France do you see many people under the age of ninety wearing berets!

 

I don't claim to be an expert on uniforms, but even country stations that had them would have had ornately uniformed Station Master as far as I am aware. Victorians like bold statements and even the design of Station Buildings was often to make them look bigger and more impressive than they actually were - "maximum bang for the the buck" as they would say today. Smart Station Masters continued into the BR era, which is what (too) many of our heritage lines aim to recreate.

To me, the big difference between heritage line steam and mainline steam is heritage line's attempt to recreate the whole scene, not just a steam loco on a train (any old train is apparently okay for "unbelievably authentic recreations" on the mainline, according to some publications). The same is true of comparing UK and many European heritage lines. The reason is usually due, certainly in France (but I am pretty sure elsewhere also) due to the problem the Velay faces - to avoid "Business Rates" (there being no railway exemption, certainly for volunteer operated lines), heritage railways tend to be tenants of the local authorities and not actually own their own infrastructure. Hence, surviving stations will often be in use as something else - often community centres. The heritage line can hire rooms or may even be the tenant, but the ownership and wholesale ability to attempt to recreate the past doesn't exist.

The one line I can think of as an exception is Museumstoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik (and to some extent other Dutch lines, such as WSM and Beekbergen at ZLSM at Simpelveld, which have some station buildings they own/are sole tenant and keep in some semblance of heritage condition. Museumstoomtram have done some very nice station restorations and also have the uniformed staff, so ph had best avoid! Ironically, the line actually remind me of his favourite IOWSR!

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed my day on the Baie de Somme last year, and yes, in many ways, it does remind me of UK heritage lines. I think the diesel hauled train across the headland caught the atmosphere of a rural French line best, being quietest, and the use of Swiss Carriages, partly in mock Pullman livery, on one of the 2 "mainline" trains was certainly a minus point for me - far more obvious than a rake of Mark 1s containing a buffet car on a former cross-country route in the UK. For atmosphere, I have to say I prefer the Velay, but the two are so different, real comparison is difficult.

Whilst enthusiast may differ on "recreations" (due to probably noticing what is good and what is bad too much), the success of the various large scale open air museums such as Beamish, Bliss Hill and Black Country, suggests the wider public do like to be "transported" back to age actually before their own memories - and that is something we shouldn't knock, because that desire is why people pay to ride steam trains and hence we can still (just about!) afford to run steam railways!

I hope the following pictures illustrate what I mean.

Steven

 

Nothing is worse than Mk. 1's which come from a desperately un-attractive era in British railway history, although I admit not to have seen the ex Swiss stock which aroused Bean-counter's ire. Remain unrepentant about "dressing up" and platform "luggage" aka junk, neither of which are ever convincing.

Paul H.

 

The Preßnitztalbahn is a microcosm of DDR steam. About the only things missing are the Trabants, IFA lorries at the Stasi but it is a wonderful recreation of DDR narrow-gauge steam as I remember it nevertheless, right down to the buttons on the guards' uniforms. Would it be any less enjoyable if the staff wore modern uniforms? Maybe not but I still enjoy the picture of the past that the railway creates.

 

So if we should ever achieve perfection, as you see it, on the rolling stock and motive power front, what should the staff wear then?

 

That multicoloured CFBS train looks ghastly and isn't what I'd call representative of the "Chemins de Fer Economique". Wouldn't stop me visiting though as it's a very pleasant railway.

 

I think that though unauthentic, the luggage is just there to inform younger visitors that there was once such a thing as luggage, luggage vans, and you could send things by train...

 

Roughly what they do at present. Uniform cap to identify them. What is more important is how they deal with passengers which is influenced not one jot one way or another by whether staff are done up like a fourpenny rabbit or not.

PH.