Tramways de la Vendee 0-6-0 Locomotives in France

Class 1 (Locobase 6816)

Data from the table presented on pages 426, 427 of the Groupe VI. - GTnie civil. - Moyens de transport. DeuxiFme partie. Classes 32 (Tome I), part of the series of Rapports du Jury Internationale of the Exposition Unverselle Internationale de 1900 Paris Exposition, hosted on the website of Le Conservatoire numTrique des Arts & MTtiers ([], Accessed 21 August 2005). See also "The State Railways of France at the Paris Exhibition", Engineering, Volume 70, No 1 (6 July 1900), pp. 1-2.

The boiler tubes were of the internally finned Serve type and steam entered the cylinders through 200 mm (7.87")-diameter Ricour piston valves. This push-pull locomotive was designed to operate easily in either direction. An aid to that facility was the layout of the bunkers and water tanks along the side, leaving the view clear to the rear.

In fact, noted the Engineering report, the locomotive was "intended for surface railways partly occupying the roads over which there is a heavy cattle traffic." So an unimpeded view was very important. Moreover, the locomotive was always run backwards, trailing a carriage with first- and second-class compartments suitable for "the casual and mixed traffic of a high-road country railway."

Engineering also tossed a bouquet to the designers of the internal finishes in the carriages: "Both of the materials [pergamoid in the 1st class stuffing, rubber cloth in the 2nd class] used in the carriage exhibited, are adapted for easy antiseptic cleaning; and, simple as the point may seem, the State Railways Administration deserve much credit for putting in practice a new and very common-sense idea/"

But Engineering had little use of government support of the Chemin de Fers de l'Interet Local, noting in a tone of elevated dudgeon: "There has recently been created in the Department of La Vendee a system of surface railways or tramways, the working of which has been entrusted to the State Railways Administration that controls all the railways in the Department. This concession to socialistic demands is not likely to be profitable, but rather the reverse; nevertheless, it is gratifying to the Socialists, and this for the moment is of more importance."