Froissy Dompierre Light Railway

File:Alco WDLR locomotive 1995.jpg

Alco WDLR locomotive at the Ffestiniog Railway 1995 gala.

The Froissy Dompierre Light Railway (Template:Langx, CFCD) is a narrow gauge light railway running from Froissy (a hamlet of La Neuville-lès-Bray) to Dompierre-Becquincourt, through Cappy, in the Somme department, France. It is run as a heritage railway by APPEVA (Association Picarde pour la Préservation et l'Entretien des Véhicules Anciens) and is also known as P'tit Train de la Haute Somme. It is the last survivor of the narrow gauge trench railways of the World War I battlefields.

History

File:Image-Réseau voie de 60 Somme 1923 map-en-.svg

Service Map in 1923

In 1915, the French Army built a railway along the Somme Canal between Péronne and Froissy. Between 1916 and 1918 the railway was at the Allied front line, and transporting 1,500 tonnes of materials daily. At Froissy, the metre gauge Réseau Albert connected with the CFCD.

After the war, the railway was used in assisting with the reconstruction and also to bring food into the villages it served. New lines were laid including a zig-zag to reach the Santerre Plateau. The line was by this time being used for the transportation of sugar beet to the sugar refinery in Dompierre. In 1927, a further deviation was built to avoid Cappy Port, which required a tunnel. The line was extended to Chaulnes in 1931. The line escaped World War II with little damage, although one train of molasses was attacked by a British aircraft. Two Coferna diesel locomotives were acquired in 1942, working alongside the Feldbahn 0-8-0s. The steam locomotives were retired in 1946 and replaced by three Plymouth loco-tracteurs. The extensions to Péronne and Chaulnes had been removed by 1954 and increased competition from road traffic meant that the line ceased operations in 1972, by which time a preservation society had already started operations.

Preservation

APPEVA was formed in 1970 with the aim of preserving a narrow gauge railway as a working museum. The CFCD was a good location, being between Paris and Lille near A1 motorway and close to Amiens. APPEVA operated its first train in June 1971 between Cappy and Froissy, a distance of . By 1974 the line was operating as far as the top of the zig-zag and in 1976 the full line to Dompierre was opened to traffic, following improvements to the level crossing on the Santerre Plateau. In 1996, a new museum was opened in Froissy.

The line starts from the Froissy terminus and follows the towpath along the Somme canal to the little station of Cappy. It then runs through a curved tunnel more than long followed by a bridge to cross the road from Cappy to Chuignes and a zig zag which was built after World War I to allow locomotives to climb the very steep slope towards the Santerre upland area. Once on the Santerre, the line runs on the side of the road to Dompierre. The terminus is located near the former sugar refinery of Dompierre.

APPEVA owns or has in store 9 steam locomotives, of which three are operating and some are considered as a Monument historique, and 24 diesel engines. The Froissy Dompierre Railway operates from April till the end of September, on Sundays and holidays, and every day of the week (except Monday) in July and August. The journey between the Froissy museum and the Dompierre terminus takes one hour. The CFCD is twinned with the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway.

APPEVA publishes a monthly magazine in French devoted to narrow gauge railways and touristic railways (Standard, metric and narrow gauge) called Voie Étroite.

Museum

File:Decauville 030T appeva.jpg

0-6-0 WT Decauville

File:AMTP 040T Henschel.jpg

Henschel No. 15311

The Musée des chemins de fer Militaires et Industriels (Military and Industrial Railways Museum), located near the line terminus in the hamlet of Froissy (French commune of La Neuville-lès-Bray), features a large collection of gauge railway material, steam engines, diesel engines and wagons, in an Template:Cvt exhibition hall inaugurated in 1996.

It also features an interesting Fairbanks-Morse speeder of 1917, used by the US Army.

Rolling stock

Steam locomotives

No.	Name	Builder	Wheel Arrangement	Power	Works Number	Year Built	Origin	Notes	Photo
1		Henschel	0-4-0Template:Whyte suffix					Henschel N°23735 de 1937	File:Henschel No 1 CFCD.jpg
2		Neumeyer	0-4-0Template:Whyte suffix					Neumeyer N°19 of 1922	File:Neumeyer-2.jpg
3		Decauville	0-6-0Template:Whyte suffix		1825	1928	Port de Bordeaux	Decauville N°1825 of 1928, Type Progrès	File:Decauville-3.jpg
4		Krauss	0-8-0Template:Whyte suffix		7373	1917	German Army	Type DFB. Operated till end of 2007.	File:DFB-4.jpg
5		Decauville	0-6-0Template:Whyte suffix		1652	1916	Ex-Réseau Nord-Est (Reims)	Type 17. In working order.	File:Decauville No 5 CFCD.jpg
7	Geneviève	Borsig	0-8-0Template:Whyte suffix		10334	1918	Poland	Type DFB. In working order.	File:Borsig No 7 et Krauss No 4 CFCD.jpg
8		Vulcan, Stettin	0-8-0Template:Whyte suffix	to	3852	1925	Ex Deutsche Reichsbahn No 99 3461, Ex Mecklenburg-Pommersche Bahn No 9.	Prototype. Under restoration to working order (goal is 2011).	File:Vulcan-8 CFCD.jpg
9		Alco-Cooke	2-6-2Template:Whyte suffix					RL 1257, N°57148 of 1916	File:Alco-Cooke-57148-d.jpg
10		Franco-Belge	0-8-0Template:Whyte suffix	to	2836	1945	Ex Sucreries Ternynck, Coucy-le-Château and TPT No. 4-14.	Type KDL (Kriegsdampflokomotive). In working order.	File:KDL-11-CFCD.jpg
11		Orenstein & Koppel	0-6-0Template:Whyte suffix	about	8083	1915	ex TPT No. 3-6.
12		Orenstein & Koppel	0-10-0Template:Whyte suffix	about	8285	1917	ex TPT No. 5-3.		File:Orenstein-Koppel-12.jpg
13		Orenstein & Koppel	0-8-0Template:Whyte suffix DFB		8627	1918	Ex Sucreries Coucy-le-Château	Type DFB. On loan from AMTUIR	File:DFB-13.jpg

Diesel locomotives

No.	Name	Builder	Wheel Arrangement	Power	Works Number	Year Built	Origin	Notes	Photo
T23		Plymouth			5117	1946		Loco-tracteur. One of the original CFCD locomotives.
T24	Tatra	Société de Construction Ferroviaires et Navales (Coferna)			122	1941		Diesel locomotive. Fitted with a Tatra air-cooled engine, one of the original CFCD locomotives. In working order.
T25	Iveco	Coferna			123	1941		Diesel locomotive. Fitted with a Iveco water-cooled engine, one of the original CFCD locomotives. In working order.
T31		Template:Proper name			233 T75 G	1958		Diesel locomotive. In working order.	File:Locotracteur Billard T75G No232.JPG
T32	Simplex	Motor Rail Ltd			588/191	1917		Tractor.
T37	Simplex	Motor Rail Ltd			7433	1939		Tractor. In working order.
T33		Baldwin	0-4-0Template:Whyte suffix		49192	1917		Tractor.
T36		Baldwin			49966	1917		Tractor.
T29		Socofer			333 SCF 303	1968		Tractor. In working order.
	Speeder	Fairbanks-Morse				1917		Draisine

Passenger stock

The CFCD operates a variety of open and closed passenger stock, most of which is built on chassis of freight vehicles dating from World War I.

Freight stock

The CFCD has a variety of goods wagons, both open and closed, that date from World War I, and also examples of wagons from the industrial use of the line after World War I.

Visiting locomotives

During the 40th anniversary of preservation of the line in 2011, three British-based locomotives visited, including Darjeeling Himalayan Railway DHR 778.

See also

• Narrow gauge railway

External links

• APPEVA, official web site
• Voie Étroite, official web site
• Description of a visit to the line