This metre gauge line connects the Swiss lakeside town of Nyon on Lake Geneva with St Cergue and La Cure on the border with France. From La Cure, the line formerly continued into France for a further 12 km, down to the industrial town of Morez where it terminated at the PLM station.
The Swiss section of this line was opened in 1916 and is 27 km in length. The section in France was opened in March 1921. The line left the PLM station at Morez and by means of a steep descent with a sharp bend it reached the main street of Morez. From here, the line followed the side of the N5 road up to the village of Les Rousses and across to the border with Switzerland at La Cure. The French section was closed in 1958. The Swiss section remains open and was modernized in the 1980's. At that time, new rolling stock was introduced to replace the original equipment.
The line follows the roadside from La Cure to the Swiss Jura resort village of St Cergue. It then descends through the forest to the lakeside and passes under the Geneva-Lausanne main line to reach its terminus at Nyon CFF. This teminus is to be moved to a new underground terminus at the north side of the main line station in early 2004.
The N.St.C.M. has always been electrified, due to the steep gradients. The original electric railcars were heavy duty vehicles operating at 2,200 volts DC with four 100 hp motors and they weighed 32 tons. There were seven in total and they could each haul several trailors. The livery was dark red and two of the railcars have survived to the present day and can be seen on the Chemin de Fer de la Mure near Grenoble. A number of the trailors have also survived ( see below).
Between 1921 and 1958, with the exception of the period 1940-48, several direct return services a day were operated from Morez PLM (after 1938, SNCF) to Nyon CFF. The journey time was a little less than two hours. Winter conditions made the operations difficult.
Since 1985 the Nyon - La Cure line has been upgraded with a new electricity supply at 1500 volts DC, automatic block signalling and new electric railcars. A new livery of orange and yellow has been applied and the line is designated
" nyon - st cergue - la cure ".
In 1999, a plan to extend the line from La Cure to Les Rousses in France, a distance of 2.5 km, was examined, but rejected due to cost for the local French villages.
One of the original seven electric railcars on the NStCM photographed at St Cergue in 1969.
These powerful railcars were only 2.2 metres wide, a width appropriate to trams rather than to the metre gauge railway on which they operated.
This width was required due to the constraints of the French section of the line between Morez and La Cure.
The NStCM possesed a number of trailors of different sizes.
Here, at St.Cergue in 1969, a train with railcar plus one of the smaller trailors is pictured in front of the Jura forest.
More recently, the station at St Cergue has been re-developed and a large depot built in the place of the scene in this photo.
[ CHEMINS DE FER RURAUX DE FRANCE ]
