The Decauville Company and young Péchot

Due to a technical problem, this post is not illustrated. We are working to resolve this.
Followers of Wrightscale always like a little background to our models.

In my last post, I began the story of French 60 cm railways. As you know, many years of fascination with the life and works of Prosper Péchot (1842-1928) resulted in my book, Colonel Péchot: Tracks To The Trenches. He was the father of 60cm military narrow gauge, but his achievement was only possible because of his near contemporary, Paul Decauville (1846-1922). The two underwent the same experiences and were both awarded the Légion d’Honneur for contributions to narrow gauge railways. Though friends in 1870s, in later life, they became frenemies. The railway ran through their most formative years.

It is interesting to trace the influence of Belle Epoque France (1870s to 1900s) on the development of narrow gauge.

The technology began elsewhere. The Germans first recognised the labour-saving potential. In Freiburg Cathedral, there is a detail in a stained glass window showing a miner pushing a hund, a sort of proto rail truck. It dates from 1350. We can clearly see how a single person could be made more productive. As Germans spread through Europe, it has been argued, they took their mining techniques with them. This spread a form of prosperity which did not depend on an underclass of slaves. Good for the Germans!

It has been argued, not unfairly, that the dark European slavery culture delayed the development of proper railways.

By Tudorbethan times, however, the English had need of German ideas.  The population was growing but the tree cover was not. Coal was a handy replacement for firewood, especially in London. Coal-ships could sail from the staithes of the north round to the port of London with much needed fuel. Railways carrying horse-drawn trains were developed to get the coal from mine to port. These railways were standardised on the old Roman wagon-width 4’ 8 ½ “  – what we now call ‘standard gauge.’ Over the years, standard gauge coal-fuelled locomotives were developed. Railways that were not built either to standard or broad gauge 7’ were basically outlawed.

The Methodist Welsh had non-standard ideas. Northern Wales did not have coal but it had an increasingly valuable resource – slate. As cities grew and thatch products – reeds, straw and heather – became harder to come by, slate provided a handy, hygienic alternative. Even better, it did not require constant maintenance, thus landlords could retain more rent. Railways were the obvious route from mine to the coast and then on to the expanding cities; the Welsh didn’t see why they should always be standard gauge.  The Great Little Trains of Wales were born as commercial necessities, firstly as horse-drawn narrow gauge railways.

It took the genius of Colonel Stephen and his like to put mechanical power on to railways. There were problems. Steam-powered locomotives worked best on straight, level track but it cost fabulous sums to build railways to these standards, far more than would be economic for a mine or quarry. If a steam loco was put on tortuous narrow gauge track negotiating steep gradients, it would soon topple over, if it had not already been derailed by its train.

The Spooner family and a team of like-minded engineers addressed these problems. They had their own laboratory for experiments, the Festiniog Railway which took slate from various quarries down to Portmadoc (Port built by Alexander Madocks). With the help of various friends, political and financial, they managed to push through the required Act of Parliament in 1863. A 1’ 11 ½ “ gauge railway could be built on existing tracks (well, sort of) from Portmadoc up the Dwyryd river.

The Princess and Mountaineer (delivered 1863) were the first steam locomotives, joined by ‘The Prince’ and Palmerston. They were all to an 0-4-0 T design with square water tanks. In the first years, many modifications had to be made as this was cutting-edge technology. Fortunately, the slate quarries paid well and so there was the money available. A photo of a heavily modified ‘Prince’ dates from the 1890s. Even the name-plate was altered.

The very short wheelbase of the early locos was a source of problems. If the wheelbase was lengthened, then there was a risk of fouling on the curves of tight radius. How about an articulated locomotive?

Thus was born Little Wonder, 1869, using patents by Robert Francis Fairlie (1831-1885).

We shall now take a ferry across the Channel to see what is happening in France which was, at the time recovering from the Franco Prussian War 1870-1.

For the young Prosper Péchot, the war had been grim. His family had suffered. His beloved uncle who had spent the war year in captivity was released, only to be killed during the battles of the Paris Commune, 1871. His brother was recovering from wounds. His father endured the siege of Paris only to die soon after. He finished his military training with the determination to stop anything like this happening again.

Paul Decauville had also suffered. In 1870-71, he had been mobilised as a gunner, defending Paris. Because the city was encircled, this involved heavy work in the cold on starvation rations.  The privations of the siege finished off his old Dad, leaving Paul with a family of youngsters to rear. Fortunately, his old Dad also left him a farm and quarry, handily placed by the Seine. Using a gravity worked railway, they could transport building stone to waiting barges, so there was money to be made. The farm itself specialised in sugar beet.

Beet is a prolific but sensitive crop which rots quickly if bruised. The autumn of 1874 was unusually wet. There seemed no way that workers with wheelbarrows could haul tonnes of sugar beet away in the short harvest window. Then Paul Decauville put together stone, building techniques and beetroot to come up with a brilliant idea. A railway is a bit like a roofer’s ladder. A roof which cannot support the weight of a human, can do so, if the weight of the human is distributed by a ladder.  If the barrows were rail-mounted, they too could transport substantial weight over soft mud.

Dacauville had rails, thanks to his quarry, and he had the labour. All they needed to do was to make a few lengths of prefabricated track and adapt some existing wagons. The rack was laid where required, the beet carted away and the track relaid in the next field. By 1876, he was marketing a commercial version of the porteur Decauville. They were soon a rich family.

Once he was a qualified Gunner – the artillerie had been his first choice when he was in officer training – the young Péchot became acquainted with le porteur Decauville. It was used in the military base just outside Rennes. In no time at all, he could see the possibilities. Instead of beetroot, he could imagine a portable railway carrying infinitely large guns and enough ammunition to reduce Germany to smithereens.

I exaggerate. He had realised that bigger guns were better. As the weight of a shell increases arithmetically so the payload of explosive increases geometrically. (Apologies to Malthus). What he wanted was a portable system which could carry guns with large barrels and serious quantities of ammunition.  Simple! All he had to do was to persuade the French Army.

Unfortunately, he was treading on a lot of well-polished boots. His campaign basically cost him his career. Fortunately, Paul Decauville understood what he was doing and also wanted to ensure that France would win the next French-German war.

He put his money and his Cred behind the Army officer.

Decauville knew well that his porteur was not original. At least one French portable railway had been patented before his. The quarries of Wales were also of interest. We know that both he and Péchot  had read articles in the specialist literature and that Decauville paid a visit to the Festiniog railway.

He thought about the problems of putting steam power on to narrow gauge track and came up with two solutions. One was a stationary engine which could haul along a train. He was, after all, an agent for Fowler’s agricultural machinery – a contemporary engraving shows steam ploughing on the Decauville estate. Another power source was compressed air which seemed to promise so much.

At some point in the late 1870s, Péchot and Decauville became personally acquainted. When Péchot came to Staff College, he became a regular visitor at the Decauville works. They were very different men. Decauville was a proud supporter of the French Republic and felt that Monarchists, Provincials and Reactionaries had stabbed the nation in the back by submitting to the Treaty of Frankfurt. This had ended the Franco-Prussian War on terms most unfavourable to the French. The new Parliament, filled wth said monarchists, reactionaries etc, had driven the Parisians into declaring a Commune and were therefore directly responsible for the bloodshed that ensued.

We know that Péchot could not agree with all this – which made him a reactionary. In later life he was to suffer greatly during the backlash after the Dreyfuss Affair.

At the time, though, the two men made common cause. Péchot wanted the Army to adopt narrow gauge. Paul Decauville wanted to sell it to them. Between 1880-82, Prosper Péchot was allowed to develop and test a military version of  prefabricated track, at the expense of Paul Decauville's company.

In 1882, as was customary before students graduated from Staff College, Péchot submitted a thesis. The title was by the standards of the time unexceptionable ‘how to wrest the fortified city pf Metz out of German hands.’ (Sorry, Germans, but this was the late 19^th century.) The consequences were, quite literally, explosive.

We’ll leave off the Péchot story for a while. Our next post will be about locomotives and wagons that Malcolm has built, all 2’/60cm gauge and all of which can be related to Péchot’s work.

Further reading: Colonel Péchot, Tracks To The Trenches

The Spooner Album produced by the Festiniog Railway Group

Early Wooden Railways MJT Lewis