🇫🇷 Train 4480 @ Limoges-Bénédictins (Scan)
In April 2012, I have started the project to scan the best photos in my personal archive, from the time I did not yet have a digital camera. Due to the fact that they are scanned images, the quality may be a bit poorer than what you are used to from me. Apart from that, I was younger then (I've started in 1998, when I was 13 years old), so composition and lighting may not be up to standards. Nonetheless, some documents are historic by now.
The summer of 2004 was the last summer of the famed gas turbine multiple units – or "Turbotrains" – in France. In general (that is, excluding a one-of-a-kind prototype locomotive from 1952 and another two-locomotive prototype class CC 80000, nicknamed «Belphégor»), only two classes of multiple units have been in service: the somewhat older "Eléments à Turbine à Gaz" ETG, which possessed the peculiarity of having one motor car equipped with the turbo-powered engine, and the other one with a conventional diesel engine; and the slightly more recent RTG (Rames à Turbine à Gaz), or "Ratagaz" of which the last units held out on the Bordeaux-Lyon route until 2004.
The main reason for that is that that route acumulates a staggering four (!) changes of direction underway (that is, not counting the endpoints): in Périgueux, St. Sulpice-Laurière, Gannat and St. Germain des Fossés, the train had to leave in the same direction as where it came from. Therefore, loco-hauled services were not very practical, but replacement DMUs were no really available. After the summer of 2004, the trains were finally replaced by exactly that, a loco-hauled consist, with a prolongation of the travel time by roughly an hour. A few years later again, X 72500 class DMUs replaced those trains.
Here, train 4480 from Bordeaux St. Jean (departure 10:42AM) to Lyon-Perrache (arrival 6:33PM) is calling at Limoges-Bénédictins station. It will run northbound on the Paris-Toulouse (or rather Les Aubrais-Montauban) main line for about 33 kilometres, before turning east - after a reversal, of course. The trainset on duty that day, carrying one number for each motor car as was customary, was headed by T 2035 and pushed by T 2036. Under normal circumstances, only the turbo engine at the back of the train was used, to save the driver from the sauna effect in the cabin when the turbo engine right behind him was working, and developing tremendous heat as a by-product. Visible on the far left of the photo is a train to Paris, offering a convenient connection for passengers arriving from Périgueux in the RTG. The X 73500 in the middle probably goes to Ussel or Clermont-Ferrand, also offering a connection for passengers from the Bordeaux line. Limoges-Bénédictins, April 2004.
🇫🇷 Train 4480 @ Limoges-Bénédictins (Scan)
In April 2012, I have started the project to scan the best photos in my personal archive, from the time I did not yet have a digital camera. Due to the fact that they are scanned images, the quality may be a bit poorer than what you are used to from me. Apart from that, I was younger then (I've started in 1998, when I was 13 years old), so composition and lighting may not be up to standards. Nonetheless, some documents are historic by now.
The summer of 2004 was the last summer of the famed gas turbine multiple units – or "Turbotrains" – in France. In general (that is, excluding a one-of-a-kind prototype locomotive from 1952 and another two-locomotive prototype class CC 80000, nicknamed «Belphégor»), only two classes of multiple units have been in service: the somewhat older "Eléments à Turbine à Gaz" ETG, which possessed the peculiarity of having one motor car equipped with the turbo-powered engine, and the other one with a conventional diesel engine; and the slightly more recent RTG (Rames à Turbine à Gaz), or "Ratagaz" of which the last units held out on the Bordeaux-Lyon route until 2004.
The main reason for that is that that route acumulates a staggering four (!) changes of direction underway (that is, not counting the endpoints): in Périgueux, St. Sulpice-Laurière, Gannat and St. Germain des Fossés, the train had to leave in the same direction as where it came from. Therefore, loco-hauled services were not very practical, but replacement DMUs were no really available. After the summer of 2004, the trains were finally replaced by exactly that, a loco-hauled consist, with a prolongation of the travel time by roughly an hour. A few years later again, X 72500 class DMUs replaced those trains.
Here, train 4480 from Bordeaux St. Jean (departure 10:42AM) to Lyon-Perrache (arrival 6:33PM) is calling at Limoges-Bénédictins station. It will run northbound on the Paris-Toulouse (or rather Les Aubrais-Montauban) main line for about 33 kilometres, before turning east - after a reversal, of course. The trainset on duty that day, carrying one number for each motor car as was customary, was headed by T 2035 and pushed by T 2036. Under normal circumstances, only the turbo engine at the back of the train was used, to save the driver from the sauna effect in the cabin when the turbo engine right behind him was working, and developing tremendous heat as a by-product. Visible on the far left of the photo is a train to Paris, offering a convenient connection for passengers arriving from Périgueux in the RTG. The X 73500 in the middle probably goes to Ussel or Clermont-Ferrand, also offering a connection for passengers from the Bordeaux line. Limoges-Bénédictins, April 2004.