Category Archives: paris orleans railway montlucon gouttieres

Saturday 28th December 2013 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH …

… will recall that ages ago I commented on some bizarre weather conditions that we were experiencing here – to whit the phenomenon that at night we were having beautiful clear skies with millions of stars visible to the naked eye, and then as dawn broke, we would immediately cloud over and have buckets of rain all day until late evening, when the skies would miraculously clear again.

This is exactly the weather that we have been experiencing here over the last few days, and each morning I’ve been woken up by a torrential downpour despite the beauty of the night.

This morning it was 05:30 that we had the downpour but I wasn’t going to be fooled by that. i’m still on holiday so I stayed in bed until 10:30 and I don’t care.

I worked on the radio programme for a while and then just after midday I actually left the premises! Yes, shopping in St Eloy where I spent almost nothing at all, and quite right too seeing as I didn’t need much and there was nothing on sale to tempt me.

On the way back home I went via Cécile’s to see if she had received any post, but her box was empty and her house hadn’t been affected by the violent winds that we’ve had. But on the way back, I noticed that the abandoned railway line from Les Racauds up to the tunnel at Les Bouchards seemed to be clear of weeds. That’s one part of the old Paris-Orleans railway line that I want to walk so it seems that I’ll be doing that sooner rather than later, once the weather dries out.

I did another radio programme this afternoon and then Marianne phoned me up for a very long chat. It seems that there’s a disturbing development with regard to the situation at Bill’s old place at Les Crouzons, and all hands will be required at the pumps for a couple of days as a matter of urgency. It’s to my advantage to be there, but that’s another few days away from here that I can well do without.

But I took the opportunity of mentioning the old railway line to Marianne and she’s going to draw up a plan of action for the next three months. We have a lot to do and we need to make the most of any decent weather than we might get. So far, apart from those few days in November, winter has been holding off. I’ve a feeling that when it dfinally does come, it will come in spades.

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Wednesday 8th August 2012 – I HOPE THAT YOU ALL …

… liked the photos of the wall as it stands right now – the ones that I went back and posted for yesterday.

la cellette puy de dome franceAnyway, here’s another photo for today, especially for Marianne in Brussels who has passed comment to the effect that I seem to spend most of my time in rural France photographing churches.

This one is the church of La Cellette, for La Cellette is the destination of this week’s Wednesday walk around the communes of the Canton of Pionsat with our friend Marianne.

And didn’t we have a nice day for it too?

la cellette puy de dome franceThis is actually the third church to have been built in La Cellette and dates from 1883.

The previous one was far too small apparently, and because of its constrained situation and site, (and on our travels around, we’ve seen quite a few churches in the Auvergne that have been in constrained situations and sites) it was not possible to enlarge or alter it.

Consequently it was demolished.

paris orleans railway viaduct la cellette puy de dome franceThe claim to fame of the village lies actually a kilometre or so outside, down a dirt track.

And this is the viaduct of the Paris-Orleans railway on its branch Montlucon-Pionsat-Gouttières.

I’ve talked … "at great length" – ed … about this railway line in the past – how it was designated as “a line of national importance” long before the turn of the 20th Century.

But it was dogged by delay after delay, construction held up by World War I, and when it was finally, after many vicissitudes, opened in 1932 its utility had passed with the collapse of the coal-mining projects in the Gouttieres region.

railway sleepers la cellette puy de dome franceIt was closed “as a war economy measure” in 1939 after just 7 years of operation and the section south of Pionsat was never reopened.

There are still a few traces of the former track if you hunt around long enough to find them though.

At what was once a level crossing for a country lane, there are still the railway sleepers embedded on the roadway. This actually is a good indication of how much maintenance has been undertaken on the lane since the closure of the line.

la cellette puy de dome franceWhile you admire yet more railway sleepers, propped up against the viaduct where they have stood for probably 50 years or more ,let me tell you about the biggest irony of all.

And that is the fact that that the Paris-Orleans Railway Company, which built the railway line, was GIVEN the land free of charge by the commune, but under certain conditions.

The stipulation was that the railway company had to build a railway station for the village – it had been dithering about whether it would or not and the gift of the land was meant to sway the decision.

And so the railway company took the land, built the line – and then dropped all plans for the station, which was never built.

la cellette puy de dome franceBut the viaduct still remains, and it’s well-worth the effort to clamber up to the top because the view to the north is stunning

In the foreground we have the village of La Cellette and poking out above the trees to the right of centre is the spire of the church that we have just visited.

Away in centre-left is the spire of the church of the town of Pionsat, and disappearing into ths simmering heat-haze are the rolling hills that lead on up to Marcillat-en-Combraille

There were only a few of us today, which was a pity, but we had a lovely time wandering around the countryside, and then we all repaired to the village café – one of the only two village cafés still surviving in the whole of the Pionsat canton – for a nice cold drink.

And this is where the excitement begins.

A woman who lives in an old house in the village is in charge of the church and we went to thank her for opening it for us. I know her husband – he’s something to do with the FC Pionsat St Hilaire football club – and so we all ended up having quite a lengthy chat.

Now I mentioned earlier that the present church is the third, and I told you a little about the second. And so what about the first one?

We know that it existed because it’s mentioned in a Papal Bull of 1118, being described as a tiny chapel. While its location is the subject of … errr … much debate, one particular theory has been adopted by those who might know a thing or two about it.

Accordingly, Marianne has been trying to visit the cellar of this particular house for half a century.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … the owner of this house, by now in an expansive mood, gave us a guided tour of the cellar on condition that we don’t photograph it and we don’t describe its location.

So there we were – perfect primitive vaulted ceiling, pre-medieval beaten earth floor, a bricked-up external door that wasn’t much more than 5 feet tall.

Marianne was in heaven of course, and I was well-impressed. We had probably at least 1200 years at least underneath our feet.

It really was the climax of an excellent day.

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Sunday 1st April 2012 – Well, I dunno …

… what happened to the footy this afternoon at Pionsat’s ground. After something of a considerable thrash (and I mean “thrash” as well) through the delightful Combrailles countryside, I arrive at the Pionsat ground at 15:10 – 10 minutes after kick-off -to find the place all locked up and deserted.

Someone has been playing an April Fool’s Joke on me, I reckon.

st priest des champs fc pionsat st hilaire fcpsh puy de dome football league franceSo why the thrash through the countryside? Well, that was because at 13:00 Pionsat’s 1st XI was playing at St Priest and I’d gone down there first.

This was a match that swung like a pendulum – Pionsat were all over St Priest for the first half an hour and were 1-0 to the good. Then we had half an hour of St Priest to take the match to 2-1 for them, and finally another 30 minutes of Pionsat with the score ending 3-2 in their favour. And I reckoned on the balance of play that they deserved it.

But there is always a little contention between these two teams and today was no exception. A fair amount of unnecessariness, including an excellent left hook from a St Priest defender that put Gaëtan on his back for a full five minutes (and for which a card of the colour … errrr … yellow was produced). It must be me, I think. I seem to be the only one making any kind of remark about things like this.

paris orleans abandoned railway line montlucon gouttieres pionsat puy de dome franceAnyway, back at Pionsat, I went round to see if Marianne was in and we ended up going for a walk along the old railway line. 

It looks quite good in that photo just here, but it isn’t. Along much of its length we could have done with a machete or two, and something to help us with the barbed wire would have come in useful too. And we did find (quite by accident) a place where there was an astonishing view right across the valley over to La Cellette in the distance with the viaduct in the background.

And if the view was so good, how come it isn’t reproduced here? Well that’s because bird-brain of Britain here ran out of SIM card, so after all of these exertions we’ll have to go back and do most of it again.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday. That is that going out in the early afternoon I happened to glance out of the window and I noticed nothing special about the trees. Going out to the football several hours later I happened to glance out of the window again and they were all covered in blossom. That’s how quickly spring has arrived here – all of five hours. It really is astonishing.

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Tuesday 8th September 2009 – IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY TODAY …

… and I really took advantage of it by going on this walk.

There isn’t all that much to see in La Cellette – a hamlet that receives its name due to there having been a religious hermit living here in Merovingian times.

church la cellette pionsat puy de dome franceMany years ago they actually discovered the cell in which he lived and it is still extant but it’s incorporated into the cellar of a private house and not available to the public, which is a shame.

But the views from up on the top of the hills behind the village were terrific – including this impressive long-hop of the towers of the churches of La Cellette and Pionsat.

abandoned paris orleans railway track bed montlucon gouttieres la cellette puy de dome franceThe railway is much more interesting.

It ran from Montlucon via Neris-Les-Bains and Pionsat to Gouttieres and hence to Clermont Ferrand and was the last major railway line to be opened in France (TGV tracks excluded of course),

Planned in the 1880s, construction started in 1913, was held up during the First World War and the line finally opened in 1931.

abandoned paris orleans railway track bed montlucon gouttieres la cellette puy de dome franceAll of this area was a railway bottleneck. A whole series of coal seams running from Lapeyrouse to Gouttieres had been discovered and developed, and coal trucks clogged up the rail network

As a result, they kept on building a series of railway lines to by-pass the congestion. Unfortunately each time they did this, they discovered yet another coal seam that they then exploited, leading to more coal trucks, which led to more congestion, which led to more by-passes.

abandoned paris orleans railway track bed montlucon gouttieres viaduc la cellette puy de dome franceBut not long after this line was opened, the coal seams exhausted and the infrastructure collapsed. The closed during World War II, reopened after a fashion once the war was over, but passenger traffic ceased shortly after, the last passenger train being a Paris-Neris “special” in 1957

The line beyond Pionsat, where we are walking, was abandoned quite quickly, but a goods service ran to Pionsat three times per week until 1973. How about that for a short-lived railway?

Of course it goes without saying that the earlier lines had all of the best routes, and the later lines ran over more and more difficult terrain. If you read what I wrote about the Waverley Line you’ll notice that I wax lyrically about the constant 1 in 75 gradient.

abandoned paris orleans railway tunnel les bouchards montlucon gouttieres la cellette puy de dome franceThat is a mere bagatelle compared to the long slog up from Pionsat to the tunnel that passes under the Font Nanaud. That tunnel, the Tunnel des Bouchards,

is 585 metres long and there are no rumours or conspiracy theories about it. No steam trains in working order ready to return to the rails when the oil runs out – no knights of King Arthur waiting to emerge when Drake bangs on his drum – just a protected site for a colony of rare bats.

It was a good day out today and I really enjoyed it.

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