Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

On the 4th of November, 1865, “Napoleon, par la Grace de Dieu et la Volonté Nationale, Empereur des Françaises,” authorised, by Imperial Decree, the construction and working of a locomotive line between St. Michel and the frontier of Italy (the summit of the pass) until “the opening of the tunnel of the Alps” for traffic. Of this very indefinite period and of the tunnel itself we shall have to speak presently. In the meantime, let it be stated that the Emperor’s decree was accompanied by a Cahier des Charges (Table of Conditions), in which, in addition to the usual conditions as affecting railways in France, are contained several specially appropriate to this very special railway. Of these, the only ones that interest the general public set forth the prices that are to be charged for the conveyance of goods and passengers. Each of the latter travelling in a coupé is to pay 27 francs, or about 5¼d. an English mile; other first-class passengers, 25 francs, or about 5d. a mile; second class, 22 francs, or about 4½d. a mile; third class, 18 francs, or 3¾d. a mile; children under three years of age, free; between three and seven, half-price; above seven, full fare. It will be seen from this tariff, how small is the difference between the charge for the highest and lowest classed passengers. The transit for goods by passenger trains is at the rate of £3. 1s. 6d. a ton, or 1s. 2½d. a ton a mile; by goods train £1. 12s., or about 7½d. a ton a mile.

The works of the railway were commenced on the 1st of May, 1866. It was expected that they would be finished in twelve months, but various circumstances have intervened to prevent the realisation of this intention; the chief, the floods of September 1866, on the French side of the mountain, when the waters rising higher than was ever known before, committed wholesale devastation, not only upon the works of the company executed up to that time, but upon the ten miles of the already opened railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel, as well. The devastation extended from Termignon within seven miles of Lanslebourg to St. Jean, a distance of twenty-eight miles. The Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company has repaired the ten miles of railway between St. Jean de Maurienne and St. Michel. The works of the roadway from St. Michel, eighteen miles, to Termignon have been repaired and their strength added to, by the French Government at an expense of about £80,000. The French Government has also recognised the claim of the Fell Railway Company to consideration, by agreeing to repay two-thirds of the cost of reinstating its works as they were previous to the floods, so that practically the company has incurred through them a direct money loss of not more than from £3,000 to £4,000. It has, however, sustained a heavy loss from not being opened to carry the immense traffic which has crossed the pass during the spring, and summer of the present year.

The railway is laid, not altogether but principally, on the outer side of the roadway. The sleepers are transverse, three feet apart, to which the outer or ordinary rails are fixed by bolts or nails. The line is fenced off from the portion of the roadway to be used for ordinary horse traffic, (the greater portion of which will disappear on the opening of the railway) by means of substantial posts and rails. The railway, in passing from one side of the roadway to the other, crosses it thirty-three times, one more than half the number of these crossings (seventeen) are on the roadway, where it is practically on the level. The crossings are therefore of the ordinary character, such as are seen in England and on the Continent; but inasmuch as the top of the centre rail, which is laid upon and fastened to continuous balks of timber bolted on to the transverse sleepers, is 9 inches higher than the outer or ordinary rails, it has been found necessary to arrange that when the roadway is open as a crossing, at those parts at which the centre rail is in use, it shall be lowered, so that it shall not be higher than the two outer rails. This is effected by a mechanique extremely simple in its action, moved by means of a lever, just as a pointsman moves his points at an everyday railway station. One movement of the lever depresses the centre rail, into a hollow made expressly to receive it, to the level of its confrères, and when it is necessary to elevate it again so as to place it in apposition with the centre rails at each side of the crossing, one movement of the lever raises it, and then it forms continuous centre rail just as completely as if there had not been any lever beside it to elevate or to depress it.

There has scarcely been a portion of the roadway which has not been widened. In most places it has only been to the extent of a yard or a little more, but the heaviest works in connection with the road it has been found necessary to execute have been at its sharp turns or zig-zags, and in passing along the villages which are studded along the entire length of the pass; for it must not be supposed that it runs through a barren, uncultivated, and unfrequented district, inhabited only by the goatherds, or occasionally dwelt in by the chamois hunter. So far is this from being the case, that there is a well-to-do population of at least 25,000 along the pass, the well-made, robust, and hardy male portion of which has often been the means of saving human life during the snows and storms of winter, with a devotion and an indifference to personal risk or consequences, not exceeded in any other district, along the whole length of the Alpine ranges.

As regards deviations, the railway winds to the back of the villages of St. Michel, Modane, Bramans, Termignon and Lanslebourg, on the French side of the mountain, but, on the Italian side, there is only one inhabited place at which it is necessary to keep in the background, and that is at Susa. By means of this deviation the connection with the Alta-Italia Railway is effected. Both lines unite together at the existing Susa station at which there is the mixed gauge of 3 feet 7½ inches, the width of the Mont Cenis Railway, and 4 feet 8½ inches, the width of the Italian railway system, which is also the width of the French railways as well as of our own, with the exception of the Great Western. But even the Great Western, in order to come within the comity of the railway world as established in England, has had to succumb, and by means of a third railway, to become “narrow” as well as “broad” gauge. Owing to the difference of gauge, transhipment both of passengers and their luggage, and of goods must take place at St. Michel as well as at Susa.

Of the deviations, or rather the prolongations or extensions of the railway, to avoid sharp turns or zig-zags, there are four between Lanslebourg and the summit. At all these zig-zags, as we know in our experience of turns in hilly or mountain roads, the gradient is always steeper than at other parts; but the deviations of the Cenis, by taking sweeps carried through eight little tunnels in the mountain, the longest of which is 105 metres, the shortest 40, and by increasing the actual distance three to four times what it is by the roadway, curves of larger radius and lighter gradient are obtained. The total length of these tunnels is 505 metres. On the Italian side there are ten deviations, and they would have been nearly double that number, had not the railway, instead of following the existing road at a part called les Echelles, about five miles from the summit, reverted to the old road which had been abandoned in consequence of the prevalence of avalanches along it in winter. Whilst the new road is undoubtedly superior for carriages to the old one, the latter is better suited for a railway, in consequence of their being no zig-zags upon it; but en revanche for this advantage, it has been necessary to cover the line over. 600 metres of this covering are massive and solid masonry, upon which avalanches will impinge, as they are hurled from the rocks above into the abyss beneath. In addition, there will be, hereabouts, 1,200 metres of covered way, of which we shall speak immediately. There are several other places on the Italian side of the mountain at which protection against avalanches must be afforded by means of similar galleries. Their total length will be 1,480 metres, or about 140 yards less than a mile, and with this amount all the Engineers seem to agree (notwithstanding the assertion of Mr. Crawford, M.P., to the contrary) that the railway will be completely protected from the avalanche danger. But snow is the cause of inconvenience as well as of danger. If snow would be satisfied to remain quietly when it falls on terra firma, the snow-plough on the engines and the shovels of a few permanent-way men would speedily send it off the line without trouble or delay; but snow is invariably accompanied, especially in these elevated regions, with high winds, and these cause drifts. There is an almost undeviating rule as regards drifts, and it is that a drift of this year will find its way to, practically, the same spot that it was at last year, the previous year, and the year previous to that also, and it will be at the same spot next year, the following year, and so on ad infinitum. Hence it is necessary, on the Mont Cenis, to protect the railway by means of covered ways, in addition to protecting them from avalanches by galleries. The covered ways are constructed, combinedly, of wood and of timber. They require to be sufficiently strong to resist the effects of high winds or tourmentes, and the weight of snow that may fall or drift upon them. By means of them the line will be kept quite free from snow exactly at those points where, without them, its greatest accumulations would have taken place. They are obviously only required high up the pass—the first, on the French side, of 450 metres long, will be at a very exposed angle of the road, about 400 feet from the summit. At and about the apex of the pass the covered ways will be about 5,000 metres, or a little more than 3 miles in length, not exactly continuous, but very nearly so. Upon the greater part of the plateau which extends along the Cenis Lake and nearly to les Echelles, covering will be unnecessary, the effect of the wind being to sweep the plain comparatively clear of snow, which becomes deposited in the angles of the hills that form the somewhat distant background of the panorama. Proceeding downwards on the Italian side, there will be the 1,200 metres of covered way on the old road parallel to les Echelles, already mentioned, and about 1,200 metres more farther down, freedom from serious snow-drifts not being obtained on the Italian side of the mountain until at an elevation of about 4,000 feet above sea level. That point passed, the softness and glow of the Italian climate become perceptible, not only by one’s own sensations, but because we witness the effects of the atmosphere from the crops and trees that surround us. The line of demarcation, beyond which cereals will not grow, is higher on the southern than on the northern aspect; suddenly we come upon the walnut and the sweet chesnut, and we have not proceeded more than a mile or so, when a turn of the road near to Mollaretta, 3,795 feet above the level of the sea, brings us upon the grape, growing in beautiful festoons, and yielding fruit that is said to make good and vigorous wine. But the highest point at which the vine can be cultivated on the French side of the pass—and that not always successfully, for in cold seasons the crops do not come to complete maturity—is St. Michel. Yet St. Michel is only 2,493 feet above the level of the sea, or 1,300 feet lower than Mollaretta.

The total length during which the trains of the Mont Cenis Railway will not be “en plein air,” will be 11,113 metres, about 6¾ miles, scattered over 18 miles of distance, but in no case will the light of heaven be shut out, as both in the galleries and in the covered ways there will be openings for its admission, as well as for that of air, which openings can, however, be closed if the direction of drifting snow be towards them. As the average length of the eight tunnels is only 70 yards, it is obvious that the maximum of darkness in them, while the sun is above the horizon, will be twilight.

There will be four intermediate passenger stations—one only first class—at Lanslebourg, the half-way house, and as already mentioned, the place at which the ascent of the mountain on the French side commences. The other French stations are at Modane, and Bramans—on the Italian side only one—a place which will be rather an engine-watering than a passenger station.

Having constructed our line, or rather we should say, having done our possible to make our readers understand how it is constructed, the next obvious proposition is how to work it.