BTziers via Montbazin-Gigean 0-3-3-0 Locomotives in France

Class 151 (Locobase 9164)

Data from A. Sampite, Les Chemins de Fer a Faible Trafic en France (Paris: Baudry et Cie, 1888), p. 49. See also [] for a history of these Freycinet Plan railways and Wikipedia [] (accessed 2 February 2008).

The Reseau d'Interet Local CF de l'HTrault was a network of secondary lines along the Gulf of Lyon in Southeast France. Sampite provides a summary of all the locomotives then in service on any of the lines and Wikipedia fills in the blanks. Note that none of the series of locomotives (Locobase 9159-9164) had either boiler pressure or grate area. The boiler pressure is an estimate.

The obvious edge in power represented by these Meyer articulateds must have excited the users at first. But by the time Sampite described the Reseau's motive power, he included the phrase "very trying" (tres-assujettisantes), especially when it came to maintenance or repairs. What might take two days for a workshop to fix on an ordinary machine, he contended, required eight days in the atelier for one of these. It's no surprise that the pair was retired by 1907.