This weekend has been a celebration of 150 years since the opening of the railway to our town. Today was 'the planting of a tree' and an exhibition of photos and information about the railway.
Since we now live directly above the station, I was interested to ask about the chemin rurale which runs beside our house and was used by the town as a main way down to the station. Nowadays there is a huge drop opposite the station, so how did 'they' used to get down. Well of course, duh, in the old days there was only one track and no cliff. When they put another track in - note to self to find out when - they must have cut the cliff and everyone had to go round.
Also learnt from one guy how as a lad he would come to the pictures in the town from the other side of the valley via the station, crossing the rails illegally and going up past our house.
But the best bit for me was the band.
A lovely oompah oompah band which had people tapping their feet. Like something from a 1950s English bandstand. And because we live above the station, when we went home we could still hear it playing from our sitting room - yay.
I usedf to like those bands....
ReplyDeleteThe path may have been a way down and across to Moulin Gamot before the railway was built. Then as you say, from the village on to the platform when the railway was single track. A brilliant site http://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/ has an 1820 -66 map showing your lane as a black line going onto the old road and across via a dog-leg to the mill.
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DeleteI think it was. The tiny river had mills for every imaginable purpose. One of the local celebrities I met again at the station has a huge collection of old photos which he is going to show me. I hope that will make things clearer.
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