Chemin de iron of Walls

The “ small train of Mure ” is a railroad to narrow gauge railway and with tourist vocation which connects Saint-Georges de Commiers with Walls It, in the south of the Département of Isere.

History

It is in 1880 that was taken the decision to connect by railway the field of Mure to the Grenoble-native agglomeration . But of the plate of the Matheysine, with 900 meters of altitude, the valley of the Isere, 600 meters lower, it is difficle to trace a way. The coast of Laffrey being excluded, the layout could pass only by the valley of the Drac, moreover very broken. These particularly difficult geographical conditions made choose a reduced track gauge (1 meter), allowing a less gauge for the works of art and of the smaller radiuses of curves. The line would be thus in correspondence with the line with normal spacing nearest, namely that of Grenoble with Veynes, which followed Drac since Saint-Georges de Commiers to Grenoble.

Construction lasted 6 years and cost 12 million gold franc. The line, long, 30 kilometers comprised 142 works of art, including 6 Viaduc S and 18 Tunnel S of which the cumulated lengths exceed 4 kilometers. Although the uneven total is of 600 meters, the line does not comprise any slope higher than 28%o. The establishment of the platform under the coast of Crozet was the single operation object: since opposite bank of Drac, one bombarded with the gun cliff until drawing a sufficient notch there so that the workmen can there take foot and begin work.

The line was inaugurated on July 24th, 1888, and exploited starting from 1892 by the Compagnie Saint-Georges-The-Walls ( SG-LM ).
Thanks to engineer André Thury, the SG-LM carried out in 1905 first world: 6 kilometers of line were electrified in D.C. current 2400 volts starting from the hydroelectric factory of Avignonet on Drac. The tests having been conclusive, the line was entirely electrified, and, consequently the black gold was transported thanks to the hydro-electric power . the food was done by a Caténaire with double wire of contact (+ and -: 1200 V); it was transformed into single contact system in 1951, and nowadays remains one of the very rare railway lines electrified under a tension of: 2400 V, with the rhetic Railroads on their section Coire - Arosa.

The train transported not only the anthracite of the mine, the material, and sometimes the workmen, but also the travellers. The success of this service encouraged the SG-LM to prolong the line towards the south. At the beginning of Walls, the crossing of the ravine of the Bonne (200 meters of uneven) required an important turning by north, the crossing of the Raizonne by an imposing viaduct, and several turnings, before finding the road on the sides of the Beaumont; from there and until Body, the railway made common platform with the road, except for the crossing of two small valleys where it established fuller curves.

It is on this section now closed that were built the large last railway works of art in masonry of France, under the direction of the engineer Paul Séjourné, also manufacturer of the famous viaduct of Fontpédrouse on the Ligne of Cerdagne. When the line reached Corps, the passenger traffic was multiplied, in particular because of the pilgrimage with Salette. The Gap ençais and the Champsaur ins wanted whereas the line is prolonged until Gap, so as to create a connection Grenoble - Gap. The construction, started in 1910 starting from Gap, reached with difficulty Saint-Bonnet in 1930. Work was then given up, and the SG-LM-G , whose initials are still reproduced on certain motor coaches, never reached Gap.

The competition of the road was fatal with the passenger traffic, which was stopped in 1950. The way was abandoned between Walls and Body. The competition of oil was, it, fatal with the intensive exploitation and transport in mass of anthracite. The SG-LM stopped its rotations on October 18th 1988. The last well of the Houillères of the Basin of Dauphine (HBD) was closed in 1997, after rough fights of the minors against the closing of this exceptionally rich mine. And it is this same year 1997 that the exploitation of the line in the tourist train was undertaken, now flourishing: it is, with: 100000 travellers per annum on average, one of the principal tourist destinations of the Department of Isere.

The current line

The lower station, bellow of the village of Saint-Georges-with-Commiers, with the altitude of 316 meters, is common with SNCF railway station on the line Grenoble - Gap. The ways of the SG-LM are parallel to way (single) the SNCF, without connection nor quay of transfert.
The small train leaves in direction north, and immediately carries out a rotation of 180 degrees in tunnel, before attacking the hills of Commiers, which it climbs in broad loops. It dominates soon the valley of Drac, in which the stopping of Our-Lady-with-Commiers retains a secondary lake. The line is still in a wooded landscape. After having circumvented the plate of Monteynard, the line, suddenly fixed on cliffside at the exit of a tunnel, dominates the Lac of Monteynard-Avignonet of more than 150 meters, almost with the vertical. The stop which mark the " small train" at this place is one of the strong moments of the course.
The line forks then towards the east, and enters the small valley of the Mound . After having overhung the " castle with the 365 fenêtres" , the line makes two complete loops to gain into uneven; the two parallel viaducts of Loulla are separated by 1,5 kilometer of line, for 40 meters of difference in altitude; viaduct of the Vaulx (alt. 710 Mr.) at the station of Mound-in Aveillans (alt. 875 Mr.), distant of 1 kilometer as the crow flies, the line sinue on more than 6 kilometers. Finally the passage of La Motte of Aveillans to the plain of Susville is done by a tunnel of more than one kilometers length (tunnel of Festinière , altitude 925 Mr.), in which animations in Chinese Ombres evoke the work of the mine. Of Susville with Walls, the way skirts the old installations and the working cities related to the mine, returning to the altitude of 882 meters to its terminus.
The length of the line is of 30 kilometers exactly, for a distance as the crow flies of 16 kilometers between the two terminals.

The service road

The railroad of Mure is exploited by the company Veolia Transport, subsidiary of the group Veolia Environnement (ex- Vivendi), which exploits other tourist railroads in France, and in particular the Petit train of Rhune to the Basque Country.

The service is ensured from April October. Two oars of 6 and 7 cars (at platforms or open) carry out the return tickets between Saint-Georges-of-Commiers and Walls It. The journey time is from approximately 1 hour 30 in each direction, stops included/understood. The speed of circulations is limited to 30 km/h from beginning to end. In peak season, one counts 4 return tickets per day, the two oars crossing with semi-course in station of the Mound-the-Baths. Each oar is accompanied by an organizer which comments on the crossed landscapes and evokes the memories of the ex-SG-LM.

See too

List of the tourist railroads of France
List of the railroads to metric gauge track of France
Carboniferous of Dauphine the

External bonds

the site of the small train of Walls

Sources

Patrice Bouillin and Daniel Wurmser, the railroad of Walls (Holy Georges de Commiers - Walls - Body - Gap) , ED. Bouillin, Grenoble 1995,
Roughcast Philippe, Of Saint-Georges-of-Commiers with Wall with the SG-LM , article published in the review the Life of the rail n° 1706 of August 26th, 1974
the almanac from the Dauphine 2004, Annecy-the-Old man (ISSN 0183-102X)
Revue the Alps leisures, 2° quarter 2005, ED. The Dauphine one released, Veurey (ISSN 1250-0089)
Marc Chesnay, Historique of the contact system of the Railroad of Walls , article published in the review regional and urban Railroads n° 302 (2004) of FACS-UNECTO

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