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In a France split in two by the demarcation line, only the railways could operate uninterrupted. A historical paradox represented by the case of Avricourt station, between Paris and Strasbourg, which regained its position as a frontier station that it had been between 1871 and 1918!
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At the time of the Liberation, the state of the French network was such that it was virtually impossible to operate it without a massive and unprecedented influx of new locomotives. Of the 17,259 locomotives owned by the SNCF in 1938, the occupying forces had "borrowed" 2,946 for use on the German network, and around 6,000 were still in working order.
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These were the figures for the biggest transport operation of new locomotives in the history of the railways. The French Ministry of the Merchant Navy trusted a global organisation, the United Maritime Authority, to plan the operation.
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The term 'welcome' is an understatement. These locomotives were nicknamed "Miss Libération", "Miss Liberté" or "Miss Désirée" by railway workers and the general public, and they quickly became legendary.
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Nothing in the design of the 141-R was intended for the large passenger trains of the 1940s and 1950s in France.
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The 141-Rs pulled the SNCF omnibus trains composed of "three-legs"!
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It was especially on the freight trains of the 1940s to 1970s that the 141-Rs proved their qualities; (...)
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Unlike roads, with gradients measured in centimetres per metre, railways, transporting loads in the hundreds of tonnes with a derisory expenditure of energy, only accept gradients measured in millimetres per metre.
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The ‘M’ in PLM doesn't stand for Marseille. Many people believe that PLM stands for ‘Paris, Lyon, Marseille’, whereas the great network was intended to be the railway from Paris to Lyon and the Mediterranean, since it had a broad vision...
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The 141-R was rarely seen under the skylights of the beautiful Parisian train stations, its 105 km/h speed limit kept it away from the platforms where long-distance passenger trains departed from.
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The West Region in 1946, unlike the other SNCF regions, did not divide its 141-Rs over a limited number of depots and line services managed by these depots, but ‘spread’ them across all depots (...)
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Located in the heart of France, this very “massive” mountain range has always been a heavy obstacle for road and train traffic (...)
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