The 141-r: parisian, of course, but rarely seen in smart stations

Auteur : Clive Lamming

The 141-R was rarely seen under the skylights of the beautiful Parisian train stations, its 105 km/h speed limit kept it away from the platforms where long-distance passenger trains departed from. During the few years when long-distance express trains were powered by steam, it was the PLM, Nord or Etat ‘Pacifics’, and sometimes the 241-Ps, that were predominantly in action.

The 141-Rs were present, particularly at Vaires and Achères, for the difficult and unrewarding tasks assigned to freight trains, and that was as close as they would get to Paris. It was here that the long, slow journey to the large marshalling yards surrounding the capital, linked by the circular line known as the Grande Ceinture, came to an end.

The 141-R was mainly used to pull the heavy freight trains on which the recovery of the French economy depended. Pictured here, next to a locomotive, a Citroën ‘Traction avant’ train. Petrol and tyres were still in short supply, but the car was preparing its comeback.© IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés. Crédits photo © Collection Trainsconsultant-Lamming

The large marshalling yards around Paris were the familiar departure place for 141-Rs at the head of lengthy trains. Here, near Villeneuve-St-Georges, the site known as Pompadour became a major road junction.© IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés. Crédits photo © Collection Trainsconsultant-Lamming

JOURNEY ON LINES THAT SUFFERED DURING THE WAR

The Second World War relatively spared the Grande Ceinture, as the Germans realised its importance for their military transport. The Allied bombing caused few major disruptions to the Grande Ceinture, but as the Germans withdrew, considerable destruction was caused to the line, in particular to the Saint-Léger and Nogent viaducts and the bridges at Athis, Maisons-Laffitte, Choisy, Neuilly-sur-Marne and Le Bourget.

After the Liberation, the SNCF and the American Engineering Department immediately set about restoring the infrastructure. Until 1945, the Bobigny-Noisy-le-Sec-Sucy-Bonneuil section of the ring railway enabled trains on the Paris-Troyes line to run, because of the destruction of the Nogent-sur-Marne viaduct. The Epinay-Villetaneuse-Argenteuil section reopened, as did the Paris-Mantes line via Argenteuil, which had been interrupted following the destruction of the Eiffel bridge at Conflans. Gradually, as hundreds of 141-R locomotives arrived, the railways in the Paris region were practically rebuilt under their wheels: many of them ran at walking pace, on temporary wooden bridges, over completely rebuilt lines.

While waiting for nuclear power, which no one believed in, coal, dearly imported, remained vital for France, as here on the Vaires site near Paris. The 141-Rs will be towing thousands of tonnes of coal every day.

PARIS REGION

As part of its immediate post-war electrification plan, SNCF planned to electrify the Grande Ceinture sections from Valenton to Juvisy, from Juvisy to Versailles-Chantiers and the short branch from Orly to Massy-Palaiseau. This project would provide genuine ‘technical unity’ (‘standardisation’ or ‘interoperability’ as it was known at the time) in the south of the Paris region.

In fact, it would create a connection between Versailles-Chantiers (hence the Paris-Chartres line) with the line from Sceaux to Massy-Palaiseau, and Juvisy (hence the Paris-Orléans line) and Valenton (hence the Paris-Lyon line) and could even touch on the electrified Vincennes-Sucy-Bonneuil line through the Valenton-Sucy section. This continuity in electric traction would greatly facilitate inter-regional exchanges and interconnections. The electrified Versailles-Juvisy and Orly-Massy sections, as well as the Valenton-Juvisy section, were put into service in 1946-1947 and seemed to confirm once and for all that the Grande Ceinture would or would not become a freight rail route and that steam traction would be abolished once and for all.

The 141-Rs of the 1940s to 1960s experienced a surge in demand and were rushed from one marshalling yard to another where the heavy freight trains were waiting. Here two ‘R’ trains travelling through a snow-covered landscape.© IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés. Crédits photo © Collection Trainsconsultant-Lamming

The Grande Ceinture, a circular line at distance from Paris, connected the major marshalling yards as well as coordinating national freight traffic bypassing the capital. But as electrification (in red) progressed, steam was retreating and left the Ceinture.

ELSEWHERE, AT THE SAME TIME

THE CHAPELON ‘PACIFIC’ OF THE NORTHERN NETWORK

Superb in its chocolate brown livery with yellow stripes, the Chapelon Nord is one of the most famous locomotives in the history of railways throughout the world. Chapelon doubled the power of these locomotives in what appeared to be a magic trick, while at the same time lowering the coal and water consumption.

CHAPELON'S VERY PERSONAL IDEAS

André Chapelon was a brilliant graduate of the Ecole Centrale. Traditionally, the railways entrusted the design of locomotives to polytechnicians, who designed locomotives that were brilliantly ‘calculated’ but suffered from thermodynamic flaws. In 1929, André Chapelon converted a ‘Pacific’, No. 3566, in the workshops of the Compagnie du Paris-Orléans (PO) in Tours. Chapelon doubled the steam passage sections and the entire steam circuit from the regulator to the exhaust.

He doubled the level of overheating by raising the temperature of the steam from 300° to 400°. He doubled the vacuum in the smokebox by implementing the Kylchap exhaust developed by the Finnish engineer Kylälä and himself. Power output increased from 2,000 to 3,600 bhp, and water savings reached 30%, while coal savings reached 20%. This gave the PO, and subsequently the North, access to ‘Pacifics’ rated at 3,400 hp and capable of moving and pulling 1,000-tonne trains smoothly at speeds of over 120 km/h. It used to be less than 2,000 bhp, 300 tonne trains with speeds of just 90 km/h.

A majestic Chapelon ‘Pacific’ is ready at the Calais depot to tow the prestigious ‘Flèche d'Or’ luxury train to Paris at a speed of over 130 kph. Behind her, an ‘R’ modestly waits to ‘ pull’ her express train... at 100 km/h.© IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés. Crédits photo © Collection Trainsconsultant-Lamming

AN ERA

When long-distance passenger trains have several vans. Here, a Calais-Paris express, made up of DEV cars, features no less than three Nord-type vans. In the lead, the 231-K struggles to start up.© IXO Collections SAS - Tous droits réservés. Crédits photo © Collection Trainsconsultant-Lamming