Decauville

Decauville (French: [dəkovil]) was a manufacturing company which was founded by Paul Decauville (1846–1922), a French pioneer in industrial railways. Decauville's major innovation was the use of ready-made sections of light, narrow gauge track fastened to steel sleepers; this track was portable and could be disassembled and transported very easily. The first Decauville railway used 400 mm (15 3⁄4 in) gauge; Decauville later refined his invention and switched to 500 mm (19 3⁄4 in) and 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in) gauge.

Name plate of the Decauville company.
Share of the Etablissements Decauville, issued 1894
Track gauge
By transport mode
By size (list)
Minimum
  Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in)
Narrow
 
  • 600 mm
  • 610 mm
  • (1 ft ​11 5⁄8 in)
  • (2 ft)
 
  • 750 mm
  • 760 mm
  • 762 mm
  • (2 ft ​5 1⁄2 in)
  • (2 ft ​5 15⁄16 in)
  • (2 ft 6 in)
 
  • 891 mm
  • 900 mm
  • 914 mm
  • (2 ft ​11 3⁄32 in)
  • (2 ft ​11 7⁄16 in)
  • (3 ft)
  Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft ​3 3⁄8 in)
  Three foot six inch 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)
  Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft ​8 1⁄2 in)
Broad
  Dresden gauge 1,450 mm (4 ft ​9 3⁄32 in)
  Leipzig gauge 1,458 mm (4 ft ​9 13⁄32 in)
  Toronto gauge 1,495 mm (4 ft ​10 7⁄8 in)
 
  • 1,520 mm
  • 1,524 mm
  • (4 ft ​11 7⁄8 in)
  • (5 ft)
 
  • 1,581 mm
  • 1,588 mm
  • 1,600 mm
  • (5 ft ​2 1⁄4 in)
  • (5 ft ​2 1⁄2 in)
  • (5 ft 3 in)
  Baltimore gauge 1,638 mm (5 ft ​4 1⁄2 in)
 
  • 1,668 mm
  • 1,676 mm
  • (5 ft ​5 21⁄32 in)
  • (5 ft 6 in)
Change of gauge
By location

History

Starting in 1875, his company produced track elements, engines and cars. Those were exported to many countries, in particular to the colonial possessions of European powers.[1] In 1878 Paul Decauville was given permission to build the Jardin d'Acclimatation railway in order to demonstrate passenger transport operations on his railway system during the Exposition Universelle of 1878.

Military use

The French military became interested in the Decauville system as early as 1888 and chose the 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in) gauge track to equip its strongholds and to carry artillery pieces and ammunition during military campaigns. Decauville track was used during the French military expeditions to Madagascar and Morocco.

The Maginot line was built with both external and internal 600mm railways, the former served by combustion engines pulling supply trains from 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge marshalling yards[2] behind the front, and the latter, served by electric locomotives taking over the loaded wagons inside the fortifications. Tracks inside the fortresses went from the munitions entries in the rear all the way up to the fighting blocks, where ammunition loads were transferred to forward magazines using overhead monorails.

Similar feldbahn equipment was used in German South-West Africa where Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft built the 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in) gauge Otavibahn.[3]

By the First World War, the Decauville system had become a military standard, and the French and British eventually built thousands of miles of trench railway track. The Germans had a similar system, with normalized engines.[4]

Civilian use

A Decauville railway was used in the construction of La Plata, Argentina, in the 1880s, and transported dignitaries from the mainline trains to the site of the founding ceremony.

During the 1889 exposition, Shah of Persia Nasereddin Shah who was a visitor got interested in the system and ordered 20 wagons and some rails to be installed in Tehran for Tehran – Rey Railway. Decauville railways were widely used in construction yards, quarries, farms, cane fields and mountain railways up to the 1950s. The company also produced road vehicles and construction engines.

Decauville tram installations for henequen plantations in the Mexican region of the Yucatán, were so extensive (approximately 4,500 kilometers of track) that the system became the de facto mass transit system for the region. Some ex-haciendas of the area still have small operating, usually burro (donkey)-powered, Decauville systems.

Decauville designed the steam tramway and cars used in Saigon in 1896.

Two Portuguese beaches, Barril and Caparica, have seasonal tourist trains using the Decauville system (600 mm or 1 ft 11 5⁄8 in gauge), totalling 10 km of track.

  • Decauville track in the Maginot Line in the French Alps
  • Turntable
  • Preserved Decauville locomotive, built for the West Melbourne Gasworks in Australia and now on the Puffing Billy Railway
  • Decauville system tourist train at Costa da Caparica, Portugal
  • Decauville track from Transpraia, Costa da Caparica, Portugal
  • Decauville track on a small bridge, Costa da Caparica, Portugal
  • Decauville track junction, Costa da Caparica, Portugal
  • Decauville track switch, Costa da Caparica, Portugal
  • Decauville 0-4-0wt steam locomotive, Hauts-de-Seine, France
  • Sisal train at hacienda Yaxcopoil, Yucatan, Mexico

See also

References
  1. Small, Charles S. (April 1971). "Decauville Locomotives in Australia". Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin: 88–94.
  2. rds
  3. Shaw, Frederic J. (1958). Little Railways of the World. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North. 37&38. OCLC 988744.
  4. Taylorson, Keith (1996). Narrow gauge at war, 2. East Harling, UK: Plantway press. ISBN 1-871980-55-0.
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