UN PEU D’HISTOIRE..

One sunny day this summer – yes, there was one – I bumped into the Editor at a vide grenier in Rochechouart and allowed him to relieve me of one euro in exchange for a book about British tramways.. (he got it cheap.!...Ed) I decided then that we both must carry the gene that makes English men go weak at the knees when they see a steam train or even, in dire cases, a double-decker bus.
So when he suggested I might write a few words for etcetera I decided to put on the anorak I thought I had left behind in the UK five years ago and take a trip into the public transport past of our lovely area that even the locals have pretty well forgotten. These days bustling cities like Bordeaux and Paris boast about their ultra-modern, eco-friendly tramway systems that provide cheap and convenient transport for the masses.

But how many of us realise that nearly 100 years ago the towns and villages of this part of Haute-Vienne boasted an electric tramway system that gave the rural population their first taste of travel – a chance to visit the bright lights of Limoges or drop in on almost-forgotten relatives – long before owning a motor car was even a remote possibility. And the living remains of that remarkable enterprise are all around us, for those of us interested enough to keep our eyes open.

Not long after we moved into our Monts de Blond home I found myself staring long and hard at a couple of gateposts in the garden.
Do you know, I reckon they were sleepers from a narrow gauge railway track, I said excitedly, to be rewarded with that ‘here we go again’ expression. A few days later I pointed out a little building opposite the Renault garage in Cieux. That looks just like a railway station in miniature. And when I went with friends to walk the streets of old Oradour-sur-Glane I found among the grim reminders of that horrific chapter in history more evidence of some sort of railway. Rails are still embedded in the roadway there and wires hang drunkenly from overhead gantries. So I decided to find out why a little town in the middle of nowhere had the same sort of public transport system as a big city. And I was amazed to find that in the early 20th century this quiet corner of France led the world.

By a stroke of luck, a book outlining the history of Haute-Vienne tramway system* was published just then, and I found it in my Christmas stocking. After working my way through it – luckily it is packed with old postcard pictures and it is a great way to improve one’s French! – we began to look with new eyes at the buildings around us. Soon after 1900 a group of local industrialists decided that trains were all very well for transporting goods and passengers over long distances, but the people of rural Haute-Vienne needed a cheap way to get around that was more convenient than trudging kilometres to a railway station. They hit on the idea of extending the pioneering tramway already operating in Limoges out into the countryside - rails, overhead wires and everything. And to power the whole system, what better than water? Something the Limousin had and still has in great quantity. A new dam and hydro-electric generating plant was built in the hills above Eymoutiers and work forged ahead on extending the rails from central Limoges as far as Peyrat-le-Chateau to the east, St Sulpice les Feuilles in the north and Bussiere Poitevine in the far west. In our part of the world, packed trams were soon rumbling along on a four-hour journey from Limoges via Aixe-sur-Vienne through the undulating countryside to Oradour-sur-Vayres, the junction for a route to Rochechouart, and on to St Matthieu, where the service connected with narrow gauge steam trains taking passengers into the Dordogne. Meanwhile, others took the same sort of time to cover the trip from the big city through Verneuil-sur-Vienne, Veyrac, Oradour-sur-Glane and a junction near Javerdat that saw the tracks divide for routes to St Junien and via Cieux on to Blond, Mezieres-sur-Issoire and beyond.

For four decades the eco-friendly system served local people well, until the physical and financial damage of World War Two and the growing influence of the private motor car combined to put an end to the service. By early 1949 the trams ran no more and rails and wires were quickly ripped up and sold for scrap, while quieter and more convenient trolleybuses took over in the city.
But many of the tramway buildings are still there.
Next time you are out in the car, look for those little three-bay cottages at the roadside with the contrasting red and white brickwork around the window openings that look almost too small to live in. Some of them were once busy stations. There’s an easy-to-spot version on the outskirts of Javerdat (owned by Phil and Pam personal friends of the editor) and the one on the Oradour road at Le Pont a La Planche near St Junien which, until a recent change of ownership, was called ‘La Vieille Gare’.

Near the summit of the lonely road between Cieux and Blond at La Verine is a clearly recognisable brick-built shelter, where locals once shivered through their mid-winter vigil as the overhead wires sizzled and they listened above the wind and weather for the welcome clankety-clank of the approaching tram and the promise of a warm ride to town. And next time you are stuck in traffic behind one of Limoges’ smart new streamlined trolleybuses, remember you are looking into history.

* ‘Il etait une fois Les Tramways de Haute-Vienne et de Limoges’ , Louis Gildas, CPE Editions.