Steam Trains and Engines

Fifty years ago, before the coming of mechanised road transport, the narrow-gauge train was as familiar a sight as motor buses are today. Every country in Europe had its own network of privately owned narrow-gauge systems linking villages and towns too small or scattered to be served by the standard-guage main lines.

France especially was well served by such systems; one province where the narrow gauge flourished was Brittany, where the Finistere, Morbihan, Cotes-du-Nord and Breton railways between them owned 1,200 miles of metre-gauge track. Today only the Reseau Breton still exists, and with 267 route miles still operating it is by far the largest secondary system in France.

Even in the winter months an average of twelve steam trains and thirty-six railcars every day arrive and depart on the five lines radiating from its principal station at Carhaix.

Twenty-one steam locomotives operate the traffic, among them eight imposing 0-6-6-0 Mallets built by Piguet in 1913. The most powerful narrow-guage steam engines in France, they are genuine Mallet compounds with the front bogie driven by the big low-pressure cylinders and the rear by high-pressure ones.