Boulogne Gare Trains Auto Couchettes (TAC)

[Thewanderer]

Having a completly random moment this evening thinking of my motorail trip from Boulogne to Narbonne in 1988 (or was it in 87 or 89?).

I'm trying to find the motorail station on google maps and not having much luck. All I can find out the former station is now a lorry park. Can anybody point me in the right direction? I seem to remember it being a short drive from the hoverport terminal.

The Wanderer.

 

[daikilo]

Having a completly random moment this evening thinking of my motorail trip from Boulogne to Narbonne in 1988 (or was it in 87 or 89?).

I'm trying to find the motorail station on google maps and not having much luck. All I can find out the former station is now a lorry park. Can anybody point me in the right direction? I seem to remember it being a short drive from the hoverport terminal.

The Wanderer.

Not clear to me that the TAC station and is now a lorry park (although I have a vague memory of a viaduct not far from the current Ro-Ro berths). I have searched as best I can and have only found inferences that the TAC probably operated from a platform in the main Boulogne station. This is not actually very far from either the ferry berths (south) or the ertewhile Hoverport (north).

That said, nothing I would consider conclusive so far.

 

[ralphwedgewood]

I can’t find much about Boulogne but here is an interesting article about the Rail – Air service that operated between the UK and Paris.

http://www.boutiquedelaviedurail.com/laviedurail/content/nos-publications

Go down to ‘Historail’ and click on decouvrez le magazine. It’s also got a far more interesting article about the Nord Superpacifics!

Not bad for a sample

 

[Gordon]

In the 1980s the specialist Boulogne TAC station was indeed near the Hoverport, in the area known as Boulogne Marais. You won't find it on Google Maps, as it has been obliterated. It is indeed now a lorry park.

Worth a quick look here for the history of the hoverport

http://www.hhvferry.com/hoverports_boulogne.html

Boulogne was the original destination for Seaspeed's operations out of Dover (Calais was later added as an alternative) and the first Boulogne hoverport was opened in 1968 coinciding with the arrival of the first SRN4. The location was actually somewhat outside Boulogne itself, being built on the beach at the adjacent resort of Le Portel. To deal with the introduction of the stretched SRN4s and the N500 Naviplanes, the hoverport was quite significantly rebuilt in 1978 when the current terminal building was constructed. Ironically, it was on the pad at Boulogne that the sole operational N500 Ingenieur Jean Bertin was broken up in 1985 after just seven years of intermittent and ultimately unsuccessful operations. The Boulogne terminal itself was abandoned by Hoverspeed in 1993 - at this time the company focussed Boulogne operations on the SeaCat service to Folkestone which they had started in 1992 but which ran into the main port of Boulogne rather than Le Portel. Hovercraft operations were thus ended and the hoverport itself no longer required.