Réseau Breton station house purchased

Over the last 5 months I've been completing the purchase of one of the original Réseau Breton station houses in a village just south of Guingamp in central Brittany. The building itself is still in great shape structurally but will need quite a lot of internal work to make it habitable and useable again. I'm just really glad I bought it before it fell into ruin and although the Réseau Breton itself has now shrunk to a shadow of its original size the idea of owning (and hopefully one day living in) a property with 6 to 8 trains a day on average stopping just outside the door is fantastic.

My girlfriend's parents are looking at using the building to run writer's workshops in but I'm wondering if any users of this site could help out with ideas for potential uses for the building. The renovation work (as is always the case) is likely going to cost more than I'd originally budgeted for and any future use I can put the place to could help offset costs. The building also comes with 1.5 acres of land at the back leading down to a sort of river valley so the prospects for leisurely summer evenings sitting and watching the passing flow of the small streams there is pretty much a built in feature.

For those who don't know what a Réseau Breton station looks like there's this amazing model at http://www.worldrailfans.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9447&hilit=Reseau+Breton. Although it's not a complete facsimile (it's missing the kitchen on the right and the parcel shed on the left) it's fairly accurate.

I'd really love to be able to use the place to house an exhibition about the Brittany rail network and the local village, especially it's history during the 2nd world war but that's probably for further down the line.

Keith

 

Lucky old you! Many of the old Réseau Breton stations are now lived in or being used for other purposes. There are one or two pictures on my Fotopic site; click on the following links if you haven't seen them :

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/p56247451.html

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/p56247315.html

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/p56112301.html

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/p56112303.html

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/p56112302.html

I still have a few more to add; these include Crozon, Châteaulin and Camaret-sur-Mer. I'll let you know when I do.

Some pictures of the R.B. in 1964 are here :

http://ronfisher.fotopic.net/c1584383.html

This collection will also be added to in due course as I still have more slides to scan.

 

Thanks Ron - I've been looking at your photos for a while but missed those shots of the RB buidings. I've spent the last 8 months putting together a gallery of mine and other houses and I'll post it up when I've finished.