Decauville

Name plate of the Decauville company.
Track gauge
By transport mode
Tram · Rapid transit
Miniature · Scale model
By size (list)

Minimum
  Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in)

Narrow
  600 mm,
Two foot
597 mm
600 mm
603 mm
610 mm
(1 ft 11 12 in)
(1 ft 11 58 in)
(1 ft 11 34 in)
(2 ft)
  750 mm,
Bosnian,
Two foot six inch,
800 mm
750 mm
760 mm
762 mm
800 mm
(2 ft 5 12 in)
(2 ft 5 1516 in)
(2 ft 6 in)
(2 ft 7 12 in)
  Swedish three foot,
900 mm,
Three foot
891 mm
900 mm
914 mm
(2 ft11 332 in)
(2 ft 11 716)
(3 ft)
  Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 38 in)
  Three foot six inch,
Cape, CAP, Kyōki
1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)
  Four foot six inch 1,372 mm (4 ft 6 in)

  Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 12 in)

Broad
  Russian,
Five foot
1,520 mm
1,524 mm
(4 ft 11 2732 in)
(5 ft)
  Irish 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in)
  Iberian 1,668 mm (5 ft 5 2132 in)
  Indian 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)
  Six foot 1,829 mm (6 ft)
  Brunel 2,140 mm (7 ft 14 in)
Change of gauge
Break-of-gauge · Dual gauge ·
Conversion (list) · Bogie exchange · Variable gauge
By location
North America · South America · Europe

The Decauville manufacturing company 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 34 in) gauge; Decauville later refined his invention and switched to 500 mm (19 34 in) and 600 mm (1 ft 11 58 in) gauge.

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 58 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.

Similar feldbahn equipment was used in German South-West Africa where Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft built the 600 mm (1 ft 11 58 in) gauge Otavibahn.[2]

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 railways track. The Germans had a similar system, with normalized engines.[3]

Civilian use

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 in Decauville system (600 mm/1 ft 11 58 in gauge) totalling 10 km.

Gallery

See also

References

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

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Decauville.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Military rail transport in World War I.
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