1 - North Company ; 2 - West Company ; 3 - East Company ; 4 - State Company ; 5 - Paris-Orléans Company ;
6 - Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée Company ; 7 - Midi (= south) Company.

2nd century : Heron of Alexandria, a Greek mathematician, invented the 'aeolipile', a sphere equiped with two exhaust-pipes opposed in form of spirale, spinning because of the reaction due to the two jets of steam.
1250 : Roger Bacon, the philosopher states that animal power will one day be replaced by mechanical power.
1550 : wagons running on wooden guides are used in a mine in Alsace.
1620 : Newton invents a kettle on wheels, propelled by exhaust steam (reaction).
1687 : Denis Papin in Germany invents a paddle steamer, destroyed by the boatmen of the Wessel river.
1769 : Scotsman James Watt perfects a steam "motor" which start the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
1770 : Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot invents a road steam tractor which drove at 4km/hr for 10 minutes, after which it crashed into a wall !
1775 : wooden guides are replaced with metal rails in mines. The latin word "regula" becomes "réole" in French ; in the north of France they say "rieule" and on the other side of the Channel they say "rail"...
1789 : the rail in its modern form makes its appearance.
1804 : Richard Trevithick adapts a steam engine to wheels. He controls it by walking behind.
1826 : French engineer Marc Seguin founds the St-Etienne to Lyon railway company ("Compagnie du Chemin de Fer de St-Etienne à Lyon").
1829 : Rainhill, England - a steam engine competition is held. The challenge is to pull fifteen tons plus its full boiler of cold water over a distance of 35 miles (56 km) at not less than 10 miles/hour (16 km/hour). George Stephenson's "Rocket" pulls 12 tonnes at 22 km/hour, then 40 tonnes at 26 km/hour, reaching a peak speed of 47 km/hour.
1831 : Marc Seguin begins transporting passengers in open wagons between St-Etienne and Lyon.
1837 : creation of the line between Paris and St Germain en Laye.
1853 : Crampton's engines are authorised to travel at 120 km/hour on the French northern network.
1876 : First use of the air brake, acts on the whole train from one single command
1879 : Siemens, a German, perfects an electric carriage that runs on rails.
1883 : inauguration of the first "Orient-Express", and first electrical strength trials.
1890 : a Crampton engine beats the speed record at 144 km/hour between Montereau and Sens.
1920 : French government decision fixes standards for overhead electrical power supply.
1931 : first autorail service between Caen and Laval.
1937 : network unification : birth of the SNCF [French national railways].
1948 : 241 P engines go into service, the last French steam engines.
1955 : the CC-7107 (electric engine) beats the speed record at 331 km/hour between Bordeaux and Dax.
1963 : first high-speed diesel-electric engines.
1975 : last regular French steam train service, pulled by the 231-K-82 (preserved). Only 500 steam engines remain.

RECORD OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS

The tubular boiler : improved in 1803 by Gooch, ehanced in 1829 by Frenchman Marc Seguin. It is criss-crossed by tubes through which hot gases pass, thus multiplying the heating surface.

The Giffard injector : after its inventor in 1859, Frenchman Henri Giffard. The injector uses a jet of steam from the boiler to force fresh water from the tender into the boiler for heating. Giffard's genius was to use the boiler's own pressure.

Compound system : steam that comes out of the cylinders can be still used to produce pressure, so in 1860 engineers had the ideas of passing it through a second pair of cylinders. This gave coal savings of 50% ! Most of the time, the rail compound system uses two pairs of cylinders, either one pair outside and one pair inside the wheels (for example the 241 P) or one pair on the first group of engine axles and the other on the following group (eg the 151 A from P.L.M).

Forced draught : from the beginning of the 19th century the piston exit was diverted into a pipe inside the chimney. The fire was thus kindled by suction downstream of the firebox. Since the draw of the chimney was no longer necessary, the latter became embryonic around 1920.

Preheating : when applied to water. Hot water is supplied to the boiler, avoiding boiler cooling. Coal economy is around 10%.

Superheated steam : steam under pressure can reach 200°C, but once reheated by gases from the fire, the steam "dries" and reaches 350°C, considerably reducing condensation in the cylinders and offering considerable improvements in performance.

The stoker (mechanical charger) : the depth of the firebox on the biggest engines, together with their consumption of 2 tonnes of coal per hour led to the invention of the stoker, a worm screw which fed the firebox. The driver then only had to guide the filling, using the shovel only for finishing touches.

View of a 141 P cab, with comments

SHORT INSIGHT ABOUT THE RAILWAYMEN

In the time of steam, a locomotive had a team consisting of a driver and a fireman. Heat in the boiler was maintained overnight at the depot by other employees who would remove ash and clinker from the firebox and maintain the fire. 4 to 5 hours before going into service for the day the fire would have been built up to provide maximum steam pressure ready for when the locomotive was required.

Today it is difficult to put oneself in the place of these railwaymen. Like craftsmen who demand precision, they had a strong sense of a good job well done, and their locomotives were looked after passionately. Together with the driver and fireman they formed a "ménage à trois" of which their wives were sometimes a little jealous... On the journey, the team spoke little, because of the noise, of course, but also because each knew not only the engine but also the line by heart. This silent solidarity was essentially for and by the job : the team found it an honourable task to leave and arrive on time, to save coal and to keep the engine in perfect condition.

The job of the railwaymen was exhausting and today's man easily sees it as a form of proslavery. This would be to forget sailors or deep-pit miners from the beginning of the century : pride and corporatism were the pillars of their thought process. They were railwaymen from father to son, they lived in railway districts, and sons and daughters of railwaymen married sons and daughters of other railwaymen ! The family was furthermore totally absorbed by the lifestyle of the head of the family. For example, each driver had a specific way of using the locomotive's whistle when the train entered the station : each wife, recognising the team's own whistle, knew it was time to heat supper...

The collective memory of the French retains the image given in the film "The Human Beast" : Renoir chose Jean Gabin for his authentic face and a style exactly that of the "railwaymen" (except that the film did not reconstitute the time of Zola, since it wasn't the right locomotive !). The exactness of the portrait shows the temperament of the railway workers, bathed in water, coal, fire. Today still those who retired from the age of steam have lost nothing !

You get a good idea of the life of French railway workers from reading "La vie quotidienne dans les chemins de fer au XIXe s.", by Henri Vincenot, published by Hachette littérature, 1975 [in French], as well as the indispensable book "Les mémoires de Marcel Péroche, sénateur du rail", published by Berger-Levrault, 1984. (M. Péroche made several journeys on the Cavignac-Guîtres-Coutras line.)

For various articles, but above all photographs, there are plenty of publications in the railway press, especially those on sale in railway stations in France. We recommand particularly the excellent magazine "Correspondance".

Translation ©2002 Web sans Frontières

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