09 May -'Circuit des Alpes’
Lyon Perrache to Lyon Perrache via Grenoble and Aix-les-Bains
with 141R 1199
The 'Circuit des Alpes' was also an add-on to 'Le Mistral'. Using the 141R a circuit into the Alps from and to Lyon with a lunch stop in Grenoble was the order of the day. Things had changed a little from the original plan, the 07:20 start being the worst bit! The train had to be through Culoz before 16:00 or would be delayed by other traffic, the reason being single line working over a bridge on the Aix-les-Bains side of Culoz leading to pathing problems. The pair of bridges that had once existed across the river Rhône had been reduced to one when a ballast train came off the track in 2006 virtually demolishing one of the bridges. Replacement of the wrecked bridge was underway but incomplete on the day of our trip. The 16:00 deadline meant the much earlier start than had originally been intended. The original idea was to leave Lyon at a much nicer hour, at something past nine, but it was not to be!
In true railtour tradition we were on the platform in plenty of time for the train but being an early departure there was no sign of the train, again! Eventually the 141R and five vehicles did appear and we were away around thirty minutes late. Not a good start for what appeared to be a day relying on good time keeping!
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Lyon Perrache viewed from the north end of the station at 07:09 and no sign of our train! |
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Looking north at Lyon Perrache and no sign of our train this way either! |
The train initially headed south before turning off the PLM mainline and heading for the hills. The day promised gradients as steep as 1 in 67 so we were all looking forward to some hard running from the loco, which we got but not always where it was expected!
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The serious climbing started after the first water stop which was at Bourgoin. Here, as the loco was watered, the flexibility of the French railway system showed itself. Occupying the down line platform two down trains were put around us on the up line with one of these trains being a TGV. The bi-direction signaling, so common in France, appeared to be making this trip possible. Without it would we have got a path or with our late running would it have meant being looped and loosing yet more time as trains overtook?
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By the time we arrived at Bourgoin the cloudy sky had broken - it was still a little chilly but it looked as if we were in for another day of sun. |
This audio clip, in MP3 format, is taken from a video soundtrack recorded on the train. 141R 1199 can be heard climbing in the Alps, edited together. Starts with "thrash" as the tubes are sanded. (976KB) 
The climb up to Chabons seemed to hardly have a straight section of track as the 141R blasted up the gradients. The ease with which the loco seemed to be coping with the load made us wonder what tonnage the loco could actually have taken? On the day the train came in at around 271t.
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141R 1199 at the 95km post, Rives station, during a pathing stop. |
Departure from Rives put us back on time and was followed by some very rapid acceleration downhill with a great deal of noise from up-front. As ever, initially, the individual exhaust beats were clear but rapidly they became less distinct and more of a continuous roar developed until maximum speed was reached and the loco shut off. The timings must have been very tight on this section as we were late pulling into Voiron for a booked photostop despite running at close to our maximum permitted speed all the way.
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10km on from the stop at Rives we stopped again for photos. At Voiron the Alps were starting to get close! But the sun was being elusive at the crucial moment. |
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141R 1199 at the Voiron photostop. |
From Voiron it was just 25km to Grenoble. Arrival was a little late but nothing to worry about. Some people opted to take the cable car trip to Fort de la Bastille whilst others headed into town for a look around and lunch. Once the tram routes and ticket machines were understood we jumped on a route B tram to Place Notre Dam. The idea had been too look at a church but it was shut until later in the day, well after departure time. So, instead, we found somewhere for lunch.
Lunch was excellent but somewhat interrupted by phone calls regarding mainline tours back in the UK! In between eating an eye was kept on the passing trams for no better reason than the numbering system was familiar!
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Approaching Grenoble this was the sort of excellent view we had on both sides of the train. |
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Place Notre Dame has this impressive monument in its centre. |
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Lunch in Grenoble. |
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Tram 6024 running on line B.
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On line A we saw tram 2023. |
From lunch in Place Notre Dame we walked back to the station having a quick look at the city as we went. Grenoble seemed like a lovely place to spend some time - but being on a railtour the purpose of the trip was the rail travel so Grenoble will have to wait for another day!
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Grenoble is surrounded by mountains, as would be expected. Mikado 141R 1199 stands at the modern station ready for the next section of the run which took the train over the section of line towards Chambery. The initial part of this route was heavily rebuilt in the 1960s to remove the many level crossing to the south of the station. |
Back at the station the 141R was looking ready to go and did so at about the booked time of 13:33. Immediately beyond the station the line climbs on to a viaduct at what appeared to be quite a sharp gradient. The loco could get little run at it due to the layout of the track. Not surprisingly the 141R sure-footedly showed a degree of contempt for the rise sure-footedly blasting up on to the viaduct very loudly. It brought plenty of people to the windows of overlooking buildings and stopped others in the street - I guess many must have wondered what on earth the noise was! Once the short rise was dealt with it was up to our normal running speed, out through the suburbs of Grenoble and finally coming out from under the wires just past the University station. As before the scenery was excellent with the line running through a broad, flat bottomed valley overlooked by high cliffs. It has to be said the Alps do take some beating!
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The views from the train were excellent but occasionally obscured..... |
The special was booked, and did run, non-stop to Culoz. SNCF had various excuses which prevented us from stopping at either Chambery, with it's large depot and plenty of facilities, and Aix-les-Bains which had been the original proposed location for our lunch break. However we passed these attractive towns non-stop in our quest to get past the Culoz bottleneck by the allotted time.
From Aix-les-Bains the one missing feature of the Alps, a lake, was added. For many miles the line followed the shore of Lac du Bourget which meant some sweeping curves and a lengthy tunnel when there was no space between the water and cliffs for the railway.
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Having passed non-stop through the Alpine towns of Chambery and Aix-les-Bains the train reached the shores of Lac du Bourget. This is the view back towards Aix. |
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And this is the view in the direction of travel, towards Culoz, with the railway about to go into a tunnel. |
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Not surprisingly the approach to Culoz was heralded by a considerable slowing for the single line working section. We got an excellent view of the bridge replacement work. The river is, again, the Rhône. |
Arrival at the scene of the bridge problems was well before 16:00 so we got past no problem and proceeded to Culoz station for our next water stop. We had one hour and one minute booked at Culoz which allowed a series of trains to pass us in all directions.
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141R 1199 takes water at Culoz. This station, set in a wide valley, is the junction between the Chambery and Geneva routes. During our stay a TGV heading for Geneva passed on the other side of the station. |
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A view forwards from the back of the train. On the right is the route to Geneva. |
After Culoz there was more climbing to do until the summit just beyond La Burbanche after which the running was generally downhill to Lyon. The scenery continued to be excellent with the railway following a narrow, twisting gorge for many miles until we finally emerged on to the much flatter land around Lyon. Here we passed under a viaduct on the TGV line from Paris to the south of France at about the same time a TGV very rapidly shot overhead.
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Along many sections of the route, and also on part of the PLM mainline traversed the day before, there were fences to protect the line from rock falls. |
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After Culoz the valley closed in considerably with cliffs towering over the line for many miles. I had been this way twice in 2000 on my way to and from Geneva but sadly both journeys were in the dark. It was nice to finally be able to see the route. |
The run back into Lyon took us through the fairly recently built station at Part-Dieu, which replaced Lyon Breotteaux, then south before swinging north to approach Perrache, again, from the south.
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141R 1199 back at Lyon Perrache after an excellent day out around the French Alps. |
The relatively early arrival back in Lyon meant diner could be a more leisurely affair than we had become accustomed to. We found a restaurant near one of the main squares in Lyon which came recommended. Whilst the food was good it was not a patch on Georges and I got the feeling we were being ripped off when it came to the wine......
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Our hotel was on Rue Marc Antoine Petit, at the end of the road was this church. |
