Train des Pignes to Le Fugeret Spring Festival

The 2016 season for Train des Pignes à Vapeur started on May 8 this year, as previous years with a journey extended to Le Fugeret and its village Spring Festival.

La Portuguese moving with steam

The GECP Mallet steam locomotive E 211 moving with a good fire in the firebox will under suitable weather conditions create very nice clouds of mostly steam but also some smoke. The post presents photos from various locations, during a regular passenger trip from Puget-Théniers to Annot.

Train des Pignes - 2014 Chestnut Festival in Le Fugeret

14éme Fête de la Châtaigne et des produits locaux - Le Fugeret

Today, November 1, 2014, the Train des Pignes Steam Train extends its regular route Puget-Théniers to Annot to the village of Le Fugeret, to take visitors to this year's chestnut festival (Fête de la Châtaigne) in this village.

Train des Pignes - First day of service 2014

In a post in May 2012, I told about the successful first day of the Train des Pignes steam train service on 13 May that year. The following year, in 2013, the service started on 5 May with a prolonged service to Le Fugeret, in connection with the Le Fugeret celebration of the "5éme Journées de la nature des traditions".

Train des Pignes at the Le Fugeret Chestnut Festival

The month of October sees many chestnut festivals (Fête de la Châtaigne) in Provence, some where one or the other of the heritage railways is involved (cf an earlier post from ATTCV at  Camps-la-Source).

The festival in Le Fugeret was held on Saturday November 2, 2013, with visitors from the whole area. The village of Le Fugeret is located at an altitude of approximate 800 m.

The Le Fugeret railway station is located at an altitude of 838 m, between Annot and  Saint André on the Nice to Digne line. It was opened on July 3, 1911, when the track between Annot and Saint André was (finally!) built and opened, thus making it possible for trains to go all the way from Nice to Digne.

Train des Pignes - Libération du haut pays Niçois

Saturday and Sunday September 21 and 22, 2013, saw Puget-Théniers celebrate the anniversary of the liberation of the upper Var valley from nazi occupation.

On Sundag 22, more than a dozen military vehicles, from trucks to motorcycles, and several dozens of participants in military clothing assembled in front of the Train des Pignes steam train at the Puget-Théniers railway station.

The participants  wore various types of uniforms:  US, French and German. Some were dressed as members of the Fench Resistance (FFI).

Below we find some photos from the Sunday event and the Train des Pignes journey from Puget-Théniers to Annot.

Vehicles in the Train des Pignes Steam Train

The steam engine, a goods wagon and five passenger carriages

Train des Pignes arrives in Annot

On hold in front of Annot station

Travelling with the Train des Pignes operated by GECP is not just another "what's-there-to-do" break from your vacation stay at the beach, with its sun and the blue sea. It's a cultural voyage, back to an era since long gone. But not only. In terms of technology it's a journey over more than a hundred years of time.

Let's start with what's in the front of your train.

Train des Pignes - La Portugaise E-211

This steam locomotive was built in 1923 by Henschel & Sohn in a series of sixteen units - for the Portuguese Railways.

During the early 1970s it was based in Sernada, used to haul passenger and freight trains on the lines Val de Vouga/Espinho to Sernada and Aveiro to Viseu. In 1975 it was transferred to Lousado, where it provided service on the line from Famalicao to Povoa de Varzim.

After being transferred to the central workshops in Puerto Campanhã it underwent its last revision in service in 1976. Later on it was based in Regua where it pulled mixed trains and work trains on the line from Corgo Regua to Chaves. It was taken out of service in 1981.

Three years later, the Portuguese Railways offered to sell twelve steam locomotives no longer in use. One of them was the E 211.

It was offered to and bought by GECP and in July 1986 towed from Regua in Vila-Real to the GECP depot in Puget-Théniers.

Train des Pignes - La Belle Epoque

June 2, 2013. It's a sunny, somewhat cool Sunday morning. Tourist buses are climbing the steep, windling roads up the river Var, causing small queues of cars with impatient drivers. The buses and some of the cars are heading for today's "special entertainment" in Puget-Théniers, the "Train de la Belle Epoque", with the GECP Train des Pignes steam train.

In the GECP train depot and workshop at Puget-Théniers station, the train crew is making the last preparations, filling-up the steam engine water tanks, greasing the engine's machinery, checking the air brakes on the carriages, etc.

People dressed as during the early part of the previous century enter the platforms while the black steam locomotive reverses into the station from the GECP depot.

The train will take all passengers to Annot, in dresses or not from La Belle Epoque.