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Author Topic: Le Quiz d'Avent - jour 23, 21 Dec 2020  (Read 4034 times)
stuving
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« Reply #30 on: December 22, 2020, 11:07:30 »

Right, a bit more nudging. I've bunged the hints into a thermocycler and this came out:

Three are places marked on Graham's map, and three are too small.

1. You should have just been able to read "musee", and perhaps "petite gare". There are several of these that have been repurposed, some as houses and the one in Saint-Gilles-(Croix-de-Vie) as a community/arts centre. You can see the family likeness in this old picture:


2. Obviously a bike race, and it is in fact "Le Tour". Below is another picture of that bizarre event from just down the hill a bit earlier.

4. That canal is often credited to Napoleon, as its building started on his watch. But it was planned earlier, and finished later. So, not one of the earlier ones, then.

8 and 9 have several things in common, but neither is Arras.

The others I have posted about over the last few years - for example why the two lines in no. 4 meet like that, or what happened a few years before the station in 5 was destroyed in 1945.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2020, 12:16:36 by stuving » Logged
grahame
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« Reply #31 on: December 24, 2020, 16:00:42 »

Here's an update - remaining questions.    About half of the French places have been recognised ... now "Open Season" ...

Here's yet another variation on the "where (or what) is this?" picture quiz. When I looked in my digital shoe box, I found lots of holiday snaps from France, some with railway subjects. So here's a selection of those, and a few extras not quite fitting that definition that have sneaked in too. Usual rules apply: one live suggestion or success each for today please.

1


2


4


5


7


8


9


11

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stuving
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« Reply #32 on: December 24, 2020, 17:00:25 »

Numbers 2 and 7 are not linked to railways - they were put in as other ways to provide an "in", based on things a number of people are interested in. But to no avail; it seems that cycle racing and canals in France are outwith the scope of those interests. So I might as well answer those:

No. 2: Stage 10 of the 2013 tour passed through Cancale just before finishing in St Malo on 9 July. The surrounding tomfoolery and crowds fortunately didn't prevent me getting my ferry that evening, in fact the roads were very quiet; were all the locals hiding away from it?

This was the second time the TdF had visited me on holiday; in 2011 the first day was from Fromentine, via le Gois (tidal causeway) and along the by-pass of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie so I could walk there. Of course, being so close to the start, the race wasn't interesting at all.

Cancale itself is an odd place - just a little fishing port (population under 5,000) now specialising in oysters, but it has around 40 restaurants!

No. 7: The actual site is at Hede-Bazouges in Ille-et-Vilaine - which really is obscure. But it's also called ?les onze ecluses?, ten of which are in a straight line - not that you can see them all from anywhere at ground level. Part of the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance, running from Rennes to Dinard (or St Malo); a sort of Ushant by-pass.

No. 4 is not far away, though not in the region of Brittany.

For no. 1 I'm not so much looking for the place as the railway it served.

Here's a picture of No. 5 after the old station was wrecked on 17th Jan 1945:

It's not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility that someone could recognise the type of  locomotive!

Nos. 8 and 9 are, as I suggested, on the route from Calais (and not far from the autoroute either). And no. 8 is one of the few buildings named after its architect.

No. 11: I visited last year, and commented on then and at other times there's been disruption at Paris-Montparnasse.
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eightonedee
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« Reply #33 on: December 24, 2020, 17:13:42 »

OK - here goes

5 is St Valery en Caux, which when I visited in 2001 did not actually have a train service - I caught a bus from in front of the station to Dieppe to pick up a hire car. I posted about the accident a while back but cannot find this by searching. A troop train hauled by a WD locomotive overran the end of the track at this terminus with some considerable loss of life - mostly US troops I think.

11 is I think Orleans
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stuving
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« Reply #34 on: December 24, 2020, 17:36:59 »

5 is St Valery en Caux, which when I visited in 2001 did not actually have a train service - I caught a bus from in front of the station to Dieppe to pick up a hire car. I posted about the accident a while back but cannot find this by searching. A troop train hauled by a WD locomotive overran the end of the track at this terminus with some considerable loss of life - mostly US troops I think.

Quite so, Saint-Valery-en-Caux (Seine-Maritime); I was there in 2017 as part of a battlefields trip. The line closed to passengers in 1994, allegedly so it could be used for delivery of aggregate for the construction of the A29 - though no doubt the lack of passengers had something to do with it.

The train suffered brake failure on the downhill section into St Valery, and arrived at an estimated 80 km/hr. The 2000 GIs were in 40 goods wagons, many sitting at the open sliding doors with the legs outside, leading to a lot of amputations as well as 100 deaths. One version I read says the loco was brought over from Britain due to the loss of so much French stock, but if goods trains were not then continuously braked, any incompatibility would not have mattered. And stuff like that did happen a lot during the war.

No. 11 is not Orleans, old or new.
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Hal
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« Reply #35 on: December 25, 2020, 15:53:28 »

No. 11 -- is it St Pierre des Corps, near Tours?
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stuving
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« Reply #36 on: December 25, 2020, 21:06:49 »

No. 11 -- is it St Pierre des Corps, near Tours?

No - but the train in the picture could quite possibly call there..
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Lee
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« Reply #37 on: December 26, 2020, 12:23:05 »

Is 11 Le Mans?
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Vous devez ĂȘtre impitoyable, parce que ces gens sont des salauds - https://looka.com/s/78722877
stuving
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« Reply #38 on: December 26, 2020, 13:08:00 »

Is 11 Le Mans?

No - and I had that down as an easier one, being topical; it was in the news only this month, having been closed for 15 days by a very unusual accident! But in the posts on that, I didn't in fact mention that it had been repurposed for intensive growing of scaffolding. Anyway, here's another picture of it from last year.
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Hal
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« Reply #39 on: December 26, 2020, 14:16:05 »

Would that be a reference to the collapsed <I>poutre</I> at Paris-Austerlitz?
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stuving
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« Reply #40 on: December 26, 2020, 15:23:33 »

Would that be a reference to the collapsed <I>poutre</I> at Paris-Austerlitz?

Yes, Austerlitz - the forgotten terminus of Paris - with most of its local trains now RERs under the floor, and no TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) routes using it.

The forest of scaffolding was for a renovation of the roof, due to finish in 2019 but still going on. It was suspended in September 2019 (coincidentally, just before I was there) due to excessive levels of lead in the air - the glazing framework was being stripped of old paint, and the protective measures didn't work well enough. No doubt the reaction to this was stronger due to the lead pollution following the Notre Dame fire. So you know what to expect when work on Bristol Temple Meads's gets going - try not to breathe too much! Work should have finished, but the delays mean it's still going on, with SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) still publishing monthly reports on measured lead levels.

That renovation work also did something to the concourse areas, but his was only part of a much bigger revamp, covering the "public realm" aspects as well, fitting in with a plan for the quartier as a whole. Here's a picture of the train shed as planned - note how the intrusive bridge for the Metro has become hardly noticeable.

This second phase was launched this year, and another for Paris-Nord has also just been launched. This is linked to the rugby union world cup in 2023 and the Olympics in 2024, and no doubt we'll see those deadlines become an important feature in reports of progress (or its lack) on infrastructure projects in Paris.
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stuving
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« Reply #41 on: December 27, 2020, 21:54:28 »

Of the questions left, no. 4 is Chateaubriant (Loire-Atlantique, gare SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)), where the tram-trains from Nantes meet the DMUs (Diesel Multiple Unit) from Rennes face to face and glower to each other across the gap. While I did comment on this odd arrangement in 2014 (with the same picture), and since, it was a harder one.

Presumably something about the rebuilt line makes it unfit for non-tram-trains to use, though it isn't clear what - it looks to be standard "railway", with barriered level crossings and using the original trackbed and stations.

Except (as noted before) in Nantes, where the line runs beside an off-road tram line and a zombie good-only railway line. There, three crossings of all four tracks are standard tram crossings. But the Nantes end of the line does link to SNCF tracks in the station!
« Last Edit: December 27, 2020, 22:10:32 by stuving » Logged
grahame
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« Reply #42 on: December 28, 2020, 00:19:52 »

Of the questions left, no. 4 is Chateaubriant ...

Duh - of course - the Beef clue.  I too got "Dijon" into my head - then "Horseradish" before getting stuck on "Wellington" which - clearly - it was NOT.

How do we stand now?   Just one or two left?  It always surprises me how difficult members find quizzes that take us beyond Great Britain - even as close as Northern Ireland let alone to our European neighbours. 
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« Reply #43 on: December 28, 2020, 13:20:58 »

I'm going to admit I haven't got a Scooby on any of them,
but will say my first impression of No 6 was, What a gauge! makes Brunel's Broad gauge look small.  Grin Grin



Scooby, Scooby Doo, CLUE
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stuving
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« Reply #44 on: December 28, 2020, 16:27:18 »

How do we stand now?   Just one or two left?  It always surprises me how difficult members find quizzes that take us beyond Great Britain - even as close as Northern Ireland let alone to our European neighbours. 

Yes. No. 1 does say it's a "petite gare" - in this context that's on the Tramways de la Vendee: metre gauge light railways running along roads (mostly) from the Loire down to Les Sables d'Olonne. This one happens to be at l'Ile d'Olonne, perhaps surviving because it's in a back street of a village, but they were all very similar. The key was "what network" (to put into Google).

The really weird thing about this system it that was built so late - opening in 1923-25, when other rural lines were already being closed down as motor buses and lorries took over. This was part of the levelling-up "Plan Freycinet" that led to 20,000 km of light railways by 1928, both tramways (i.e. largely on the roads) and separated routes, and at various gauges. (A short history in English is on Wikipedia).

These secondary railways (voies ferr?es d'int?r?t local) covered much of France, and in some places (notably Brittany) got going before 1900 and formed substantial networks. In such hilly areas roads couldn't be used, so it was more a case of narrow gauge being cheaper, and completing the mainline network (the subsidy helped too, of course).  In the (very flat) coastal Vendee, it looks more like a rearguard action by the state railways to keep out competition from buses, and mainly joined the ends of their lines.

There are hardly any pictures of these "little trains" (many ruder names were also used) running on streets, perhaps because they only ran three or four times a day (plus a few goods trains). These two were taken from the same point (but the train one is earlier), so you'll just have to move the train mentally.


These pictures are from Remy and Marlene Wiart's collection of postcards here, and there are further (unlinkable) pictures here too. (I'm also now finding more sites about such trains elsewhere in France, some with maps and pictures.)

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