Belleville Funicular Tramway

The Belleville funicular tramway (french: tramway funiculaire de Belleville) was a cable car which from 1891 to 1924 connected the Place de la République in Paris to the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville, on a hill in the Belleville quarter. It has since been demolished.

It was a hybrid of a tramway and a funicular, similar to the famous San Francisco cable car system (started 1873), it was replaced in 1935 by Paris Métro Line 11, running on the same route.

History

In the late 1880s, the need to serve the busy quarter of Belleville led to consideration of setting up a cable car line, uniquely able to manage the hill's inclination. But unlike San Francisco and other American cities where this new system was operating, which had wide roads on grid plans, the width of the Paris roads required a single track railway with plenty of passing loops along its rather meandering route.

In 1886, one Mr. Fournier submitted a request for a concession. After much deliberation by the Ville de Paris, the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of the Interior and the Corps of Bridges and Roads, and the virulent protests of the , who saw it breaking their monopoly, the line was given its ("Public Utility Declaration") by a decree of 24 January 1889 under the jurisdiction of a under the control of the Conseil général of the Seine Department. A contract was signed on 7 August 1890 between the Department and Fournier, which provided for the construction of a line by the Ville de Paris and its operation by Fournier, who passed it over to the .

The funicular tramway became operational on 25 August 1891. The line started at the Place de la Republique, going up the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple and the Rue de Belleville to its terminus in front of the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville. Its total length was or of single track with a crossings over the Canal Saint-Martin and four others at the crossroads of the Avenue Parmentier, of the Boulevard de Belleville, of the Rue Julien-Lacroix and of the Rue des Pyrénées. Its gradient was fairly steep, starting with a shallow slope but climbing the hill with gradients of at least 3.4% (1:30) but as high as 7% (1:14), with several tight curves.

The line quickly became popular: in 1895, it transported million passengers. The line quickly reached capacity, and because it was impossible to add more passing loops, the line was operated in "bursts" (french: rafale), with several vehicles closely following each other very closely. But this operation was particularly dangerous for pedestrians and road traffic. So it was decided to operate two cars together as a train, and their end platforms were extended over the couplings, increasing each car's capacity to 57 passengers. 1902 became the record year for the line, with million passengers.

On 31 May 1910, the concession ended and the Ville de Paris took over operation as a ("French public service authority"). During the First World War the line was underfunded, and at its close needed heavy repairs to continue service. But operations finally ceased on 18 July 1924, and the tramway was replaced by a bus line called the "BF", operated by Schneider H buses with their front seats removed to increase capacity. This route was subsequently incorporated into the network of the Société des transports en commun de la région parisienne (STCRP). The infrastructure of the funicular tramway was demolished, the cars were sold for scrap, and for many months were held somewhere in Issy-les-Moulineaux. In 1935, Paris Métro Line 11 opened on the same route, extended at each end.

Technical characteristics

The tracks of the funicular tramway were built at with a central access channel which gave exclusive access to apparatus in a groove from street level. The U-shaped rails, of the Broca system, were set into the road surface, with blocks housing the traction cable, which was of diameter and weighed . The cable was of hemp rope reinforced by six steel strands. The breaking strain of the cable was .

Each terminus on the line was equipped with a pulley of diameter, mounted horizontally under the pavement, which drove the endless traction cable. The cable passed over another tension wheel, which compensated for cable stretch.

The system was driven by two Corliss steam engines, installed in the depot at 97 Rue de Belleville.

The 21 cars were each long and only wide, accommodating 22 passengers on four longitudinal bench seats. The rolling stock was never upgraded; the cars remained gaslit (with acetylene) and were unheated because of the short journey time.

The vehicles were equipped with a "grip" system, detachable pincers which took hold of the cable in the underground channel. To put the vehicle in motion, the driver progressively tightened the grip. This action, repeated several thousand times, limited the cable's lifetime to less than six months. The cable ran in the channel at a speed of by day, and by night, when there was less traffic. To stop the car, the driver used a handbrake which acted on the wheels. Brake pads also acted against the rails.

The infrastructure was built by the Ville de Paris, directed by its chief engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe, better known as the architect of the Paris Métro.

Operation

The funicular tramway served a populous quarter of Paris. Because of this, the flat rate fare was quite low, 10 centimes, and there were half-rate worker's fares at the start and end of the day. Despite the low fares, its popularity made the company extremely profitable.

Tramway operations barely changed throughout the line's existence: a departure every 11 minutes from 5am to 6am, then every 6 minutes from 6am until 12.30am. The total number of daily departures was as high as 364 in winter, and 382 in summer, with respectively 37 and 30 in the morning at half rate.

Accidents

Operational accidents were relatively rare, and mostly related to cable wear. If the cable broke it would wind around the grip, preventing the cars from stopping and causing them to overturn or run into those that had managed to disengage the grip in time. This could cause havoc in the streets.

But the steep slope of the Rue de Belleville caused the more spectacular accidents. The greatest was on 6 January 1906, when a ruptured grip resulted in a runaway car. It continued the whole length of the Rue de Belleville, crossing the Rue des Pyrénées at nearly (according to the press reports) before being derailed and overturning in the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple. The passengers panicked and ran, causing 17 injuries. In 1907 and 1909, brake failures caused two collisions between the tramcars and Mekarski system cars at the Rue des Pyrénées crossroads..

In popular fiction

In , Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain describe Fantômas taking the funicular on return from a meeting with the Apaches.

See also

* Tram
* Funicular
* Paris Métro Line 11
* Belleville (commune)

References

Sources

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External links

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La complainte du funiculaire
Song lyrics from the early 20th century
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Ménilmontant-Belleville: Mémoires d'un vieux quartier
television documentary aired on ORTF on 7 June 1965 (INA website)

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Funicular railways in France
Tram transport in France
Metre gauge railways in France
Railway lines opened in 1891
Railway lines closed in 1924