For those of us 'into' French railways, whether standard or narrow gauge and particularly interested in the history of, (bearing in mind that history is the reason things are done the way they are now); I will post old postcards with a theme of French Railways. Please note that after 77 years a postcard image enters the public domain (so no copyright problems);










If these are of interest please let me know (theres only another 400 to go)

mikey

Voila merci. Je continue!;















mikey

Encore plus!







Mikey

more;







this one is an italian metre gauge;



More soon

mikey

mikey

And yet more....;















mikey

Excellent Mikey. I would like to try and catalogue these one day.
Some of these break my heart to think they no longer exist and the stations are occupied by non-train lovers.

That monorail CF de Puy de Dôme is intriguing. Do you know anything more about it?

the Puy de dome (near clermont-ferrand) is one of france's oldest extinct volcanoes and at the beginning of the last century the monorail was constructed up the side of the volcano, unfortunately people had to walk the last 1/2 kilometre!!.It is 400 metres high, but the winding road now leading up is 1464k long! That must have been a hell of a train ride! A sure cure for constipation!!!

Mikey

mikey

Cf Puy de Dome isn't a monorail despite appearances. The raised centre rail is a Fell rail, but there are conventional rails on either side. The locomotives were built to the Hanscotte system, whereby the weight was borne by the running rails, and two horizontal wheels were pressed against the Fell rail for extra traction. The Monorail effect comes from the owners requirement for the tracks to be filled in - on open track llike the Snaefell tram on the IOM the fell rail is less obvious.

Thanks Dave, That explains it all. An intriguing system that I didn't know about.

Yes i echo that , thanks Dave

mikey

More;









mikey

Mike, I would be very interested to see any Postcards you may have of the Deux Sevres Tramway or the Royan Tramway systems.
This is a very long shot but does anyonw have any info on the Rail network, some of which still exists, which was laid as part of the works to prevent coastal errosion at the mouth of the Gironde?