Manlay

Deep in the heart of rural Burgundy, the afternoon "Picasso" railcar pauses at an isolated station in front of the water tower, witness to a past era of steam hauled passenger services from a distant capital. The ancient Peugeot 403 is a further clue. Are we in the 1950's ?

The solitary passenger waits to board with an obviously heavy case, that the ungallant male ( ? husband) pointedly fails to help with. Are we dreaming ? Well, yes ! Thanks to a friendly staging by TRAM, organisers of a July 2003 phototrain, we can re-live, briefly, a 1950's scenario along the Avallon - Autun line. Immortalized by 35 disciplined photographers lined up just behind me !!

Manlay station is located 24km from Autun, and 63km from Avallon on the single track line which also serves Saulieu. Manlay is 293km from Paris. The small village is nearly 1km from the station which was opened in 1882.

This is a remote rural area and the railway line provided an essential service to the local community for the first 50 years of its existence.

The station was served by local stopping trains and some direct express trains between Paris and Autun. The surviving water tower ( the only one left on the line) bears witness to the early steam trains, replaced by autorails from the 1930's.

Here is our station in August 2004, unattended and overgrown, but still served by several trains a day, surprisingly, after many decades of decline.

By 1975 the timetable at Manlay was as follows:

- at 09.18 (daily) two autorails crossed, one from Laroche-Migennes(05.53) to Autun(09.45) and the other from Autun(08.50) to Auxerre(11.54) where a connection was made to the Paris express which reached the capital at 14.20, a five hour journey.

- at 11.49 (Sats, Suns) the through express from Paris(07.23) paused here before continuing to Autun(12.20)

- at 11.53 (Mons-Fris) an autorail from Laroche(09.02) to Autun (12.20)

- at 14.35 (daily) an autorail from Autun to Laroche-Migennes with a connection on to Paris ( 19.00) a journey of 4 hours 25 mins to the capital.

- at 17.07 (Sats, Suns) an autorail from Autun to Laroche-Migennes with connection on to Paris (21.43) a journey of 4 hours 36 mins

- at17.08 (daily) crossing with the autorail Laroche to Autun

- at about 17.45 (Sats, Suns) the through express from Autun to Paris passed without stopping.

- at 19.31 ( Fris, Sats, Suns) the Avallon - Autun autorail which made a connection at Avallon with the stopping service from Laroche, and an express from Paris (13.35) a six hour journey to Manlay.

Manlay, abandonned and unattended, in August 2004. But several passenger trains a day still stop here. The line narrowly escaped closure.

In the winter of 1994-5 several modifications resulted in a virtual isolation of this line after withdrawal of the Paris express, limited to Avallon on Fridays and Sundays, and withdrawal of most of the local services, so that there was no onward connection at either end of the line.

TER motor coach services were introduced from Avallon, Saulieu to the TGV station at Montbard. The journey time to Paris from these two towns became 2 hours. Autun was also connected by TER motor coach to the TGV station at Le Creusot.

The Avallon - Autun line owes its survival to several unexpected developments which came together at the same time.

The small platform sheltor at Manlay, now no longer in use, since the crossing loop is closed and overgrown with weeds.

Factors which saved the line include the intervention of an energetic user group ( TRAM) which succeeded in persuading the authorities and SNCF that there was no significant extra cost in running two passenger trains a day organised to connect at each terminus. A further positive factor was the transfer of responsibility for the local train services to the regions, in this case to Bourgogne Region.

Finally, the demand for stone ballast from the quarry at La Roche-en-Brenil and logs from the Morvan forest increased substantially and justified a regular week day freight train which picked up wagons at Autun, Saulieu, La Roche-en-Brenil and Avallon.

The VFM company, delegated by SNCF to run the line in 2000 ( replacing CFD ) has also commercial responsibility for creating business and has been successful at that. The transhipment facilities for logs have been greatly improved and the tonnage has vastly increased in the last four years. In 2006 another subsidiary of SNCF, Fertis, took over responsibility for all the freight traffic on the Morvan network.

Here we see the 14.02 autorail from Laroche-Migennes arriving at Manlay at 16.46 on Saturday, August 21st 2004. There was a connection from Paris Gare de Lyon(12.27) at Laroche giving a journey time of 4hrs 20mins. The "Caravelle" EAD railcar will continue to Autun and on Mondays - Fridays would be extended to Etang for connections to Nevers and Dijon.

This is the second train of the day.

This class of autorail, known as "Element Automoteur Double" or EAD was christened "Caravelle" by railwaymen in the 1960's when first built. They made a big impression at the time for improvements in capacity, comfort and visibility for passengers compared to previous railcars. They were therefore associated with the first short range jet airliner in the world, the Caravelle, built in France.

The EAD diesel-mechanical, and later diesel-hydraulic railcar sets were deployed on local and regional services all over France in the 1970's and 1980's but were excluded from steeply graded routes due to power limitations.

These units were designated X4300( the oldest group), X4500, X4630, and X4750 and X4900 according to improvements in transmission and motorisation. Visually, it is very difficult to distinguish the different classes and groups. There were 351 units in service at 1.1.2004

A rural railway scene to end this page. As the travellors stride away, the railcar accelerates off through the lush countryside of southern Burgundy towards its terminus at Autun, as it has done for the last twenty years, though honesty compels me to report that few passengers were seen on board and indeed the four trains a day are usually nearly empty on this section.

However as long as the daily freight train continues to run, and, some days, it loads to 20 wagons at la Roche-en-Brenil, then these passenger trains will continue to run, and who knows, perhaps the introduction of modern A TER units will encourage more use of the train between Autun, Saulieu, Avallon and Auxerre.

Meanwhile it would be satisfying if someone took over the task of maintenance of Manlay station building which desperately needs some attention to restore it to former elegance.

Since August 28th 2006, the red and cream EAD units have been replaced by modern X 73500 units of Bourgogne Region.

The timetables have not been changed on this part of the network, and remain based on two return trips a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. A late Friday evening service from Avallon to Autun connects with the Paris train at Avallon.