Aix-les-Bains-Le Revard station

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Welcome to Aiguillages! for the second year in a row, Bassin Chambérien's Railway Model-making Association organized a railway layout exhibition in the middle of Chamnord shopping center, in Chambéry 4 days last year, a week this year, to let the public discover the joys of railway model-making. And discover nice railroad networks too! As the one that is going to be our interest today: Le Revard rack railway. Created by François Fouger about 20 years ago, in 1992 to be precise, This railway model was given away a while ago to Bassens club. Its designer also wrote a book about that same subject and held 2 conferences during the exhibition, now called "On Track" The railway model is made up of 5 modules representing the 5 main areas crossed by the line and to be as close to the reality on the ground as possible, it's constructed in staggered rows. The track has its origins a few centimeters from the floor, in Aix-les-Bains station and gradually rises up to more than 2 meters at the other end of the route: Le Revard station. That's a fair climbing with portions easily reaching 25%. The scale is "HOn3z" "HOn3" is usually used to represent the narrow tracks of American railways: 3 feet, or 914 millimeters. Scaled, the track gauge is 10,4 mm wide on the layout "z" is from "zahn" and means "rack railway" in german, the equipment having been bought from an austrian supplier. This model railway was displayed in several rotating exhibitions mainly during its first 10 years of existence. Now that it's in the hands of the AMFBC, it's about to get a second life. François Fouger, the creator of this model, was kind enough to give it to us, we are going to try to restore it, my friend Patrick Belot, vice-president of the club, is taking care of the design part as you can see behind me and I'm taking care of the electricity part. It's been displayed in several exhibitions since about 20 years, and François got tired of it, so he gave it to us This train actually operated from 1893 to 1935 and was running from Aix-les-Bains Le Revard station, to the Mont Revard which is behind me The service was to take passengers and skiers up as the road was not built. So they were going up by train, to party too. The model railway renovation will also give an opportunity to insert electronics for buildings lighting and to create animations in the stations: The buildings and the platforms will be lit before trains arrivals and turned off after their departures This system will be controlled by an arduino module midway Arduino modules are electronic interfaces, programmable by an open-source language The one mainly taking care of this task is Xavier Bouillard, another member of the association The line, which went into operation on August 15th, 1992, was first open during summer only In winter 1908-1909, services were first created for skiers. Thanks to the train, Le Revard became the first french ski station. The running was granted to the Public Limited Company of Mountain and Regional Railways and then taken over in 1924 by the PLM, which created Le Revard Company. The hotel complex was completely refurbished. The ski station was so successful that the decision was taken to build a road and a cableway. Those developments were fatal to Le Revard railway. The passenger services ended in 1935, and the freight services ended 2 years later. Now, the access is by road from Aix-les-Bains to Mouxy former station, then by air. It only takes 30mn, including 10mn by cableway, to get to Le Revard. 2 important railway infrastructures were built: Fontanelles curve bridge, composed of five 12 meters long arches arranged in an arc of a circle. The second important infrastructure is Pré-Farnier tunnel, also curved built. 5 stations were marking the route: that of Aix-les-Bains is situated to a height of 264 meters 9km away, Le Revard terminus is overlooking the city and its lake, being located at about 1496m. The single track metric line is equipped with a rack railway, laid end-to-end. To arrive at the end of the route, steam engines were refilling their water tanks in every station and loading a bit more than 700kg of charcoal briquettes. The outward journey was taking about 1h15 The return journey was a bit shorter, the steam engine not needing to refill its tanks in this direction. Nowadays, it is possible to follow most of the route of the former rack railway, on foot, thanks to the contribution of an association of tourism and culture enthusiasts, about rack railway, who first started by clearing the platform, and then rebuilt Mouxy station exactly as it had been. That's where a hiking path is now starting from, allowing one to follow on foot the former rack railway route, and to pass the remaining tunnels and viaducts A piece of track and its rack railway were built last summer in Mouxy. They'll soon be joined by a steam engine from Chamonix It is a short step to thinking that some could seriously consider ways to make trains operate again on the heights of Aix-les-Bains Meanwhile, François Fouger's model is here to make us dream. Next week in Aiguillages, we'll take another look at Longueau Steam Festival A true to scale Festival, as there were garden trains operating on 45mm wide tracks Meanwhile, to stay in touch, subscribe to Aiguillages newletter, that you can find at www.aiguillages.eu, subscribe to its Youtube channel, and like and share its facebook fan page.