The French Railways Museum was thus opened to the public in the half roundhouse of the Mulhouse North depot, rue Josué Hofer. It was the beginning of a history that is still being written every day.
A collective
memory
Shortly before World War I, tourism was picking up speed in France. The big rail companies continued to deploy their publications and attend national and international exhibitions. Monuments and cultural venues served by the major networks eventually became selling points.
We might think with a smile that the first French “railway” was a dream: but it did exist, it left vestiges, memories and relics, a bridge, a platform, to act as “witnesses” and mark the road to progress.”
– F.L. in Revue Mensuelle des Apprentis et Organe de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Apprentis P.O., no 86, April 1927
In the 1920s and 1930s, rail companies gradually set up advertising budgets. In April 1927, in its monthly magazine, the Compagnie du Paris-Orléans encouraged its apprentices to sign up for the railway history project. As it commemorated 100 years of the first railway line between Saint-Etienne and Andrézieux, the company reminded the public that history looks back in time, and also in the present and future. Each railway worker contributed individually and collectively to the project.
1937:
an instructive
locomotive
The International Exposition of Paris was inaugurated in 1937. The Railways pavilion was located not far from Invalides station, and allowed rail companies to show their latest innovations. At the entrance to the pavilion, a locomotive decorated with a large Robert and Sonia Delaunay fresco drew the eyes of visitors. This was the 232 Baltic no 3.1102 Nord, which can be seen today in the Cité du Train. Its particularity? That of being cut in halves for explanatory purposes and having luminous devices simulating the paths of gas and steam. Come closer, and take a good look at the inner life of a loco!
The SNCF was founded in 1938,
and the museum project came back to the fore before the war
“Under the decree law of 1937, the five large railway companies of the country were merged on 1 January 1938, giving rise officially to the Société nationale des chemins de fer français. At the time, French rail employed 515,000 workers and had 42,700 km of tracks.”
1 January 1938. The Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer was founded. Five years later, in 1944, the idea of setting up a museum devoted to railways was back. The Association Française des Amis des Chemins de Fer (AFAC) founded in 1929 became a major defender of this great plan. Paris was believed to be the ideal city for the new establishment. But the project, which was suspended in 1949 mainly for financial reasons, was finally put off to “better times”.
The Crampton as a monument
From steam
to turbotrain
In the 1960s and 1970s, steam locomotives were gradually phased out. As diesel and electric engines gained ground in the system, French people simultaneously saw trials with hover trains and the development of Turbotrains, the ancestors of TGVs. The INA film titled Dernière Pacific is an account of the end of that transition period, when nostalgia was mixed with experimentation.
The driver climbs out of his cabin and replies to the questions from the journalist with some emotion. While he recognises that “you cannot fight modernism”, he also reminds viewers of what steam engines meant to him: “a team life” and “love for the machine”.