Channel of Burgundy

The channel of Burgundy is a channel with small gauge (Gabarit Freycinet) located in Burgundy (France).

It connects Migennes on the Yonne to Saint-Jean-with-Losne on the the Saone by crossing the Watershed between the Atlantique and the the Mediterranean. This channel, length 242 km, comprises 189 lock S, several bridges channels and a tunnel of 3 333 m in its highest point with Pouilly-in-Auxois (altitude: 378 m) and are thus for this reason the most channel of France. It crosses Saint-Florentin, Tonnerre, passes not far from the supposed site of the battle of Alésia, serves Montbard and Dijon. It is fed by the whole of tanks of Grosbois-in-Mountain, of Chazilly, Panthier, Cercey and Bridge, close to Semur-in-Auxois, connected to the channel by a complex network of drains.

Under consideration as of the reign of Henri IV, dug starting from 1775, it was completely open to navigation only in 1832. A partial opening took place nevertheless as of 1808 between Dijon and Saint-Jean-with-Losne, thus offering an access to the the Saone, and, consequently, with the Rhone-native Sillon with the capital of the Ducs of Burgundy. Its lock S profited from a modernization in 1882 by their settings with the Gabarit Freycinet.

Authenticate technical exploit and masterpiece of Civil engineering for the time, this water way, generally, never was completely with the height of the ambitions of its promoters. Its goods traffic was even, after a first period of expansion of 1832 with 1850, somewhat disappointing. Several reasons explain this semi-failure:

- its too reduced gauge , which allowed only the transport of tonnages limited, even after its modernization after 1882, and, additional handicap, embarrassment caused by the singular point of the vault of Pouilly-in-Auxois where the narrowness of this tunnel does not make it possible two Péniche S to cross. Convoys of several Péniche S were to thus be made up to cross it in a direction then in the other, pulled by a Toueur that one can still observe with Pouilly-in-Auxois, limiting traffic circulation considerably.

- the competition of the railroad a few years only after its opening supplements in 1832: the railway Paris Dijon Lyon Marseilles of the company PLM, also called “imperial” artery, allowed as of the Second Empire a transit of the goods much faster and transported volumes much more important.

- the competition of road transport, significant as of 1930, and which was being accentuated until him to remove the essence of its commercial traffic to the turning of the Années 1970. It failed even to cost him its existence-even: in 1966, the construction of a fast track to improve the access to Dijon was envisaged instead of the channel since Plombières-the-Dijon, leading to current the river port and the place of May First. For the anecdote, the obelisk of the Port of the Channel would have been placed exactly in the middle of an exchanger of the highway type.

The channel of Burgundy, initially conceived like a transportation route making it possible to connect Paris easily and the south of France, moreover never served great industrial and commercial centers or even of the basins of population which could have ensured a captive traffic to him its opening. One notes only some exceptions:

it river port of Bridge of Ouche was connected to the 19th century with Epinac (department of the Saône-et-Loire) by one of very first the railway line open in France. Authorized by a ordinance of the king Charles X in April 1830, long 26 km, it allowed the evacuation of the coal which was then transhipped since the coaches on the barges. After a few tens of years, this mode of exploitation, very heavy in term of logistics, was abandoned because the development of the rail network of PLM allowed the transport of coal from beginning to end since Epinac, without employing the water way. Prolonged beforehand to Dijon while following the course of the channel exactly, this way of railroad was reopened with the travellers in 1905 to ensure of the daily connections between Dijon and Epinac. Reduced to the only section Dijon - Gissey-on-Ouche, it closed finally in 1968, date on which it did not see besides any more circulating but one single known Sunday return ticket locally under the name of " train of the pêcheurs". One still sees close to Fleurey-on-Ouche a metallic bridge which crosses the channel and which supported this railway.

them river ports of Dijon, now known under the name of the " port of the canal" and of Montbard, which supplied these cities

- at the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the Years 1960, the service road of the cement factory and the career of Crugey in the department of the Coast-with Or

- several sawmills installed on its banks, in particular in the Department of Yonne

Nowadays, open from April to the end of October and exclusively intended for the pleasure sailing, it became in a few years one of the major assets of tourism in Burgundy. Its central course very bucolic in a landscape undulating and dominated by the castle of Châteauneuf (department of the Coast-with Or) indeed is very appreciated by customers primarily of foreign origin. Its pastoral landscapes were regularly used by the cinema: the lock known as of “Baugey”, between Bridge of Ouche and Veuvey-on-Ouche, thus served as like decorations external with the famous scene of film of Bertrand Blier, the Waltzers , where Miou-Miou is thrown to water by Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere.

The channel of Burgundy remains however exposed with the climatic risks: victim of a rising devastator of the Ouche in September 1965 which flooded certain districts of Dijon, it on the contrary was partially closed in 2003 because of the episode of the Canicule, its tanks not laying out more essential resource out of water to feed it (one kept water for the nautical leisures practiced on these ponds!). On the contrary, the very abundant rains of April 2001 caused the overflow of several of its level S between Pont of Pany and Fleurey-on-Ouche, thus contributing to an exceptional rising of the Ouche.

For several years, a program of restoration and valorization has been under development. Within this framework, a center of interpretation of the channel was built in 2004 with Pouilly-in-Auxois on levels traced by the Architecte Japanese Shigeru Ban. It is made up at the same time of buildings accommodating a permanent exposure, but especially of a market of protection of the Toueur of form semi-cylindrical, transparent, taking again exactly the dimensions of the tunnel and whose frame primarily consists of tubes of paperboard. In addition, work of rehabilitation of many locks as well as the prolongation of the Véloroute is committed on the banks of the channel, whose only section of Ouges with Pont of Pany, long of about fifty kilometers, exists to date.

See too

List of the channels of France
Vault of the channel of Burgundy

External bonds

Structurae: details on the channel

Dictionary of the inland waterways of France in the Babel project: the channel of Burgundy

Men and River: thorough historical study of the channel of Burgundy

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