Tramways de Royan

The Tramways de Royan were two narrow-gauge railways that provided mainly passenger transport in and around the coastal resort town of Royan in western France.

History


In Royan, the Société Générale de Tramway de Royan (SGTR), a subsidiary of the Société Centrale des Chemins de fer et des Tramways, had a gauge steam tramway built by the Decauville company on behalf of the town and operated it until 1894. Trains ran on the first sections in the urban area from 1890, but the branch to the railway station was only used until 1893. At the start of the 1891 bathing season, the railway extended to the north-west as far as the suburb of Pontaillac and to the south-east as far as Saint-Georges-de-Didonne. In the summer season, the trains, which were mainly used by the many tourists, ran every half hour.

Initially, 0-4-4-0 Mallet tank locomotives built in 1889 with and an unladen weight of 9.5 t were used, which had run on the Decauville railway at Exposition Universelle of 1889, for which the Eiffel Tower had been built. They were named Kairouan, Australie and Madagascar and were later passed on to the Chemins de fer du Calvados in 1892.

The Compagnie du Tramway de La Grande-Côte à Royan was granted a concession for the 6 km long extension to the coastal area of La Grande-Côte in the municipality of Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, which opened in 1897. From the outset, the SGTR managed the operation here and also became the owner from 1903. In 1905, the network had reached a length of 17 km with the La Grande-Côte-Saint Palais-Royan-Didonne line, which mainly ran along the coast, with the new branch from Royan-Paradou to the port of Saint-Georges-de-Didonne.

The 27 km long forest tram of the Tramway de Grande-Côte à Ronce-les-Bains (GCR) company along the  Côte Sauvage (Wild Coast) began at La Grande-Côte station. It was opened in 1892 by the forestry commission as a metre-gauge (3 ft $3 3⁄8$ in) gauge horse-drawn tram line and was converted to  gauge in 1913. In 1925, the SGTR took over operation, so that its network then covered a total of 42 km.

In 1933, the Département Charente-Maritime took over from the town of Royan. Instead of forest railway trains, the line from La Grande-Côte was served by buses from 1939. The entire operation, which suffered severe damage during the Second World War, was finally closed to passenger traffic in 1945 and to freight traffic in 1947/48.

Locomotives
Normally, the trains of the Royan steam tramway consisted of a 0-4-2 locomotive (with two coupled axles and one trailing axle) and three open carriages. The more powerful 0-6-2 locomotives could also pull four carriages. Trains with four carriages were a rarity, as there were only two or three of these locomotives. According to the numerous reports from people familiar with the Royan tramway, one of the more powerful locomotives was normally stationed in Pontaillac on peak days as a reserve and possible reinforcement.

The first metre-gauge Decauville railcars (Automotrice) were procured around 1903. From 1924, six petrol-powered Campagne railcars from the 1910s were used on the 600 mm forest railway lines, both of which ran on the Groupe Laborie narrow-gauge lines in 1914 after the outbreak of the First World War and were finally used as light railcars on the metre-gauge lines from Cormeilles to Glos and Montfort-sur-Risle in the Eure department around 1933.

Operation
Several water supply points were accessible along the line, at which the water tanks attached to the sides of the steam locomotives could be filled: Water towers with a water crane were each at the Bureau de Saint-Palais and Casino stations on the Place des Acacias, while only a simple hose was used for this purpose at Pontaillac and Grande Côte.

In the first season, there were fifty trains a day, departing every 15 minutes. By 1 October 1890, 160,000 passengers had been transported and in the following year, traffic even doubled to 357,000 passengers.

Proposal to re-install the forest tramway
In 2020, the association Les Sept Sentinelles (The Seven Guardians) gave serious thought to re-installing the forest tramway and putting it back into operation. It proposed building a 12 to 13-kilometre line along the Vélodyssée route with three stations and six on-demand stops: Pointe-Espagnole - Les Clônes - Négrevaux - Passe Blanche - La Bouverie - Phare de Coubre - Bonne Anse - La Palmyre.

Stations of the forest tramway and steam tramway
From north to south, there were the following stations with a water supply, double-track stops and single-track stops on demand (as well as other landmarks listed in brackets):

Literature

 * Henri Domengie: Les petits trains de jadis – Band 8: Ouest de la France. Editions du Cabri, Breil-sur-Roya 1990, ISBN 2-903310-87-4
 * Federation des Amis des Chemins de Fer Secundaires: Chemins de fer regionaux et urbains. Revue bisemestrielle, N° 139, 1977-I.