StDenispresMartel

Here we discover a charming country railway junction which served four directions. The station is situated 27km south of Brive-la-Gaillarde. It was first opened in 1862 with the line from Brive to Capdenac. Twenty seven years later, a link to the west was opened with a line from St-Denis-Près-Martel to Sarlat. Two years later, in May 1891, the line to Aurillac was completed. The station retains today much of its original aspect, with two island platforms in front of an imposing white faced stone BV with platform canopy in the style of the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer Paris -Orléans.

One of the lines, to Martel and Sarlat has been closed, but the 7km line to Martel is now privately owned by a Chemin de fer Touristique.

Welcome to St-Denis-Près-Martel on Thursday May 6th 2004. The middle of the afternoon is not a busy time here and there is not even a Café de la Gare in this locality ! But this is an interesting and famous point on the French rail network, partly due to the retention of mechanical signalling controlled from a panel on the main platform.

Here we are looking north towards Brive and clearly freight traffic is important. Below, we see a freight train passing through from Brive on its way to Aurillac with a pair of smokey BB diesel locos in charge.

May 6th, 2004.

So, at the southern end of the station, we find this rare arrangement of three single track lines snaking away to the east, south and to the west. To the left, the line to Aurillac 75 km away, to the south the line to Figeac (61 km), Capdenac and Rodez (134 km). On the right a track climbs steeply. This is the line to Martel and formerly to Sarlat. It is now closed, but the section to Martel ( 7 km) has been sold to a Chemin de Fer Touristique which runs trains as far as a spectacular viaduct overlooking the valley. The CFT does not run into St Denis-près-Martel station.

Interestingly, my CHAIX timetable for 1975 includes Table 460 entitled Bordeaux - Libourne - Bergerac - St-Denis-près-Martel - Aurillac. So it was possible to travel across country from Bordeaux to Aurillac via this isolated junction.

For example, a 2nd class autorail departed from Bordeaux at 05.45, reached Sarlat at 08.39, Souillac at 09.15, St-Denis-Près-Martel at 9.39 (2 minute stop to reverse direction) and reached Aurillac at 11.08.

In May 2004, the busiest moment of the day for passenger trains was at around 18.40 ( except Sundays). At this time four trains crossed. First the Rodez - Brive arrived at 18.34 and stopped at the main platform. Then the Aurillac - Brive arrived and stopped at the island platform. Next, a train from Brive arrived on the other side of the island platform and this train was split. The first section departed for Aurillac and the second section proceeded afterwards to Rodez.

Below we see this activity on Thursday, May 6th 2004.

On this evening, the train from Brive has arrived composed of three X 2200 units and two trailors.

The first train out was an X 2200 plus a trailor for Aurillac.

The following TER for Rodez was made up of the

X 2200 plus trailor plus X 2200. We can see this TER below heading away towards Figeac.

Calm returned to this isolated junction which once saw much greater activity.