xotGD
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There isn't a wood anywhere near?
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Railway General Knowledge.
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A clue is that it's related to Northwood Hills'.
DerekC
Established Member
Grasping at straws here. Northwood seems to be about 10m higher than Northwood Hills, but the names imply the opposite?
DerekC
Established Member
OK. Working on a fiendish question to post later. 
Right. I am making a hypothetical journey in about 1927 by metre gauge train and tram through France Sud-Est. My itinerary is:
Nimes > Arles > Meyrargues > Draguignan > Grasse > Cannes > Nice > Antibes > Plan-du-Var > St Martin Vesubie.
I might have to walk between stations in the same town here and there, but I have a canvas back pack so that's no problem. Please name the railways and tramways that I would travel by (I think it's seven in total). Biscuit to the person who gets the most right.
Right. I am making a hypothetical journey in about 1927 by metre gauge train and tram through France Sud-Est. My itinerary is:
Nimes > Arles > Meyrargues > Draguignan > Grasse > Cannes > Nice > Antibes > Plan-du-Var > St Martin Vesubie.
I might have to walk between stations in the same town here and there, but I have a canvas back pack so that's no problem. Please name the railways and tramways that I would travel by (I think it's seven in total). Biscuit to the person who gets the most right.
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DerekC
Established Member
Correction - I think it's six separate railway and tramway companies. The history of French secondary railways is a little complex!
Oh, lawks -- or should I say, ciel ! -- fiendish indeed; as consulting the various possible "cribs", is essentially not the idea here... Trying what I can "off the top of my head" -- electric lines as to my "knowledge or suspicion", indicated as appropriate. Nimes -- Arles -- Meyrargues would have been by standard-gauge secondary lines (i.e. not part of any of the French "big railway companies" -- hereabouts: Midi, and Paris -- Lyon -- Mediterranee). Maybe one, maybe two, different secondary s/g concerns between Nimes and Meyrargues: don't know the name(s). I know that standard-gauge and metre-gauge "secondary" concerns met at Meyrargues: from Meyrargues eastward to Draguignan and Grasse, was a line of the metre-gauge Sud-France undertaking. A matter of metre-gauge electric tramways, I think (Tramways du Littoral??) Grasse -- Cannes -- Nice -- Antibes, or the last, vice versa? -- Antibes is west of Nice; I suspect, subtleties which are not present in my head. North-and-west from Nice, back on the Sud-France metre-gauge system: its route which heads for Digne. Said route had connecting with it, several short (and mostly, very short-lived), most or all electric, independent metre-gauge terminal branches to various places -- no idea of the names of any of them. I'm assuming that one such connected with the Sud-France at Plan-du-Var, running thence to terminate at St. Martin Vesubie.
DerekC
Established Member
OK - good start @Calthrop . Nimes to Arles could be done by metre gauge - in 1927 under steam power.(electrified in 1930). Nimes to Meyrargues was by standard gauge secondary line - not metre gauge as I originally thought, but we need the names of those first two steps. Meyrargues to Grasse was indeed by the metre gauge CF du Sud de la France although by 1927 it had changed its name to the CF de Provence Then, as you correctly say, electric trams to Nice, but only partly by Tramways de Nice et du Littoral. From Nice northwards it's metre gauge steam by the Sud-de-France/CF de Provence again as far as Vesubie/Plan-du-Var - then off into the mountains by electric tram - but again. what company? (None of the missing stages are too hard to guess!)
Filling in my journey:
Nimes - Arles
Arles - Meyrargues
Meyrargues - Grasse - CF du Sud de la France
Grasse - Cannes
Cannes - Antibes
Antibes - Nice - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral
Nice - Plan-du-Var - CF de Provence
Plan-du-Var - St Martin Vesubie
So a few more to go! (I suspect that the electric trams on the southern coastal strip between Cannes and Nice interoperated on each others' tracks quite a bit, but at this stage I am going to try to be fussy!)
Filling in my journey:
Nimes - Arles
Arles - Meyrargues
Meyrargues - Grasse - CF du Sud de la France
Grasse - Cannes
Cannes - Antibes
Antibes - Nice - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral
Nice - Plan-du-Var - CF de Provence
Plan-du-Var - St Martin Vesubie
So a few more to go! (I suspect that the electric trams on the southern coastal strip between Cannes and Nice interoperated on each others' tracks quite a bit, but at this stage I am going to try to be fussy!)
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The actual hard facts that I have in my head, re the overall matter of your question, are sadly meagre -- anything further, will be pure guesswork / response to hints. You say that the guessing isn't mega-hard -- so: first stage, CF or Tramway de Nimes a Arles; then, CF Arles -- Meyrargues? As regards tram Grasse -- Cannes -- Antibes, I really haven't the foggiest. Electric tram for last stage to St. M. V. -- Tramway de Plan-du-Var a St. Martin Vesubie??
Peterthegreat
Established Member
Grasse to Cannes.
Tramway electrique de la côte d'Azur?
Tramway electrique de la côte d'Azur?
DerekC
Established Member
None of those is correct but @Peterthegreat has the right idea - think geography on a larger scale than town names.
DerekC
Established Member
Try a department rather than a region.
DerekC
Established Member
That gets us two of our missing links, plus further research suggests that Tramways de Nice et du Littoral ran over the tracks of the municipal Tramways de Cannes, so only two left to go:
Nimes - Arles
Arles - Meyrargues
Meyrargues - Grasse - CF du Sud de la France
Grasse - Cannes - Tramways des Alpes-Maritimes
Cannes - Antibes - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral (over the tracks of the Tramways de Cannes)
Antibes - Nice - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral
Nice - Plan-du-Var - CF de Provence
Plan-du-Var - St Martin Vesubie - Tramways des Alpes-Maritimes
The names for the two missing sections are different, but both are associated with the same geographic feature.
I'm really not in a position to do anything about these last two, without cheating !
DerekC
Established Member
You have earned the biscuit anyway, I was just looking to see whether you would get chocolate on the top!
The whole story is:
Nimes - Arles - CF de la Camargue
Arles - Meyrargues - CF des Bouches du Rhone
Meyrargues - Grasse - CF du Sud de la France
Grasse - Cannes - Tramways des Alpes-Maritimes
Cannes - Antibes - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral (over the tracks of the Tramways de Cannes)
Antibes - Cagnes - Nice - Tramways de Nice et du Littoral
Nice - Plan-du-Var - CF de Provence
Plan-du-Var - St Martin Vesubie - Tramways des Alpes-Maritimes
Total route length about 350km - I really enjoyed my trip!!
(It's astonishing how much money was spent on lines that lasted a very short time, with some stunning viaducts and bridges on the way. One of TAM's lines lasted less than six years!)
Toutes directions ouvert!
OT, but I wonder what of that is walkable!
On actual former trackbeds -- who knows? Bryan Morgan in The End of the Line, muses nostalgically on the great days a quarter of a century before his travels: when one could make pretty much the question's end-to-end journey, by scheduled passenger workings, in an (extremely long) day; though he comments, "it would have been an experience to daunt -- and sore -- any enthusiast". Doing the 350km in the way on which you speculate -- one's feet would be sore, for certain
...Merci pour le biscuit, monsieur.
I have been reckoned previously on here, obsessed with Ireland's railways; anyway if that's so, I propose to indulge it -- question perhaps a bit less fiendish than yours (which was fun notwithstanding !).
Please identify the highest-above-sea-level station -- ever -- on Ireland's 5ft 3in gauge, conventional, rail network.
Gloster
Veteran Member
Poyntzpass?
Indeed a bit of a trek, but it certainly sounds like it had interesting parts!On actual former trackbeds -- who knows? Bryan Morgan in The End of the Line, muses nostalgically on the great days a quarter of a century before his travels: when one could make pretty much the question's end-to-end journey, by scheduled passenger workings, in an (extremely long) day; though he comments, "it would have been an experience to daunt -- and sore -- any enthusiast". Doing the 350km in the way on which you speculate -- one's feet would be sore, for certain
Not Poyntzpass, I'm afraid.
Gloster
Veteran Member
Roscrea? (We are talking about the current network, not the all time one, aren’t we?)
By "ever" as above: intention is to indicate the all-time -- "conventional 5ft 3in", as-per -- network.
Not Roscrea.
This would seem to be a question of the kind re which it's difficult to give a hint, which would not be a dead giveaway. An attempt: the station concerned was on a line which -- although abandoned long ago, from the perspective of 2025 -- was closed definitely late in the overall annals of rail closures in the island of Ireland. And: the fact to which the question pertains, and the place, feature in an item recently posted on the Forums !
Gloster
Veteran Member
Loughrea?
(If that is wrong I will go for Moate.)
(If that is wrong I will go for Moate.)
Neither, I'm afraid. (The place truly is high up in the hills -- which I don't think those guys are !)
"No further", by the looks of it. Answer is Pomeroy (170m or a little less, above sea level) between Dungannon and Omagh, on the Great Northern Railway of Ireland's Portadown -- Omagh -- [London]derry route, abandoned Feb. 1965.
Open floor.
Open floor.