French Narrow Gauge Album

Narrow Gauge Railways of Europe by Peter Allen and Pat Whitehouse, published in 1959, was a seminal book which introduced many British railway enthusiasts to railways overseas. In the 1950s, holiday expectations began to change and railway enthusiasts began to look further afield, sailing across the Channel to France. In this album we follow these adventures as they began to discover the multitude of different narrow gauge railways once to be found there. In France the narrow gauge was far more extensive than in Britain. Across the Republic as a whole, narrow gauge public railways at one time ran something approaching 12,000 miles (20,000 kilometres) of route. France was once a narrow gauge nation par excellence. This enormous network of narrow gauge railways was developed between 1870 and 1925, to open up what was essentially a country of small towns and rural villages. Motive power on the French narrow gauge ranged from lightweight 0-6-0T tram engines to hefty 0-6-6-0T Mallets, together with all sorts of colourful and exotic railcars. British photographers like Pat Whitehouse, Eric Russell, Lance King and John Snell were enchanted by this variety and captured as much as they could on Kodachrome colour slide film in the 1950s. This album sets out the highlights of their adventures in glorious colour with entertaining accounts of their travels, and then brings the story right up to date with the digital photography of José Banaudo, Peter Lovell and Steve Sedgwick in the most colourful and comprehensive account of the French narrow gauge for many years.

French Narrow Gauge Album - Sample Images