construction maison contemporaine clermont ferrand

this week aiguillages is in the vendã´mois, to offer you to discover the ttvl the vallã©e du loir tourist train are you following me ? the boarding is immediatein thorã©-la-rochette station. the tourist train welcomes you on board to take a 3h journey we'll only travel ona little section of la vallã©e du loir as the latter is more than 300 km long.claude gives the departure signal towards vendã´me first,

because we're meeting the tgv (high speed train) near the place where the 1990 rail speed record was broken. the journey is commentated on the one handby an in-car audio system and on the other hand by the president of the association, claude germain. he is the former mayor of thorã©-la-rochette and had the idea ofthe creation of this train in 1987 we're riding a railcar from the x 2400 series: the x 2419 which operated on sncf rails

from 1952 to 1988 before being taken out of service and acquired by the intercommunal syndicatecreated to support the tourist train project. and here we are, at the firstend of the line on varennes platform, near the place where, taking advantage of a small 25km slope, no. 325 tgv atlantique trainset broke a new world record, reaching a speed of 515.3km/h. 80-110 tgv operate here on a daily basis. we just have to wait for one of them to arrive.it did not take it long to do so. this one was from paris. our railcar can now leave in the opposite direction

to montoire and trã´o, its terminus. on our way, nearvarennes plateform that we just left, we'll stop before somemegalithic monuments reconstruction, dolmen and menhir, as the one we can findin la vallã©e de la brisse and we're going to a new appointment, with a more contemporary history.we're passing in front of our departure station again, in thorã© la rochette, turned into a house of wine to promote the local wine production.

during the working week, the linewe're using is used by heavy grain trains, coming to supply montoire siloswhich have a 90 000 tons storage capacity. we're about to go through a tunnel which has the special quality of being capableof being closed by reinforced doors. it's saint-rimey tunnel, a vestige from world war ii.5 km from here, in montoire sur loir station, hitler, arrived on boardof his armoured train, met pierre laval and then pã©tain, on 22 and 24 october, 1940. the tunnel was supposedto become a shelter against air attack.

it was fortified in 1942, and equipped with bunkersand reinforced doors, as the german army had planned to build the w3 there,one of the 20 headquarteers hitler wanted to install all over germany andin the rest of occupied europe. saint rimey tunnelwould have been an indestructable fortress. but in the end, the w3 was never built. after montoire silos,the line was only used byt the ttvl. and its 30 volunteers are in charge of maintaining it. arrival at trã´o station.

on the last floor of the building,la vallã©e du loir miniature railway is exhibiting some railway models,and we're able to repeat our train journey in ho scale, as one of the layouts is the reproduction ofthe main sites of the line used by the ttvl. the association's volunteerseven represented themselves on the model, replacing crossties. after a 25mn stop,we're leaving back to thorã©-la-rochette. gã©rard is driving our x2419: 79 copies of this railcar were produced.

and soon imposing silhouette of montoire silos appears in the landscape. unmanned level crossing. after the shunt, we're leaving the line reserved to ttvl to take the tracked shared by grain trains and tourist trains again. in this direction, level crossings are not automatic: the conductor has to get off to close the barriers manually. then we're arriving in montoire station,that became the museum of encounters.

a railway model and other original documents allow the visitors to better understandwhat was played out in montoire in 1940, and what the population had to endure. the handshake between hitler and pã©tain and the first time that the word"collaboration" was pronounced, happened here. within this small station walls. hitler was on a way to spainwhere he was supposed to meet franco. as he was afraid of flying,he was always using the train. the small town of montoireprobably didn't need this type of notoriety.

as our train is coveringthe final kilometers separating us from thorã©-la-rochette, a thunderstorm threatens. the passengers just have the time to goto take shelter when getting off the train. taking shelter in the house of wine,to savor regional products during the downpour. our railcar will access the hangar under the rain. it will park there untilit operates again next week. next week in aiguillages,we'll be in valdahon for the haut-doubs miniatures exhibition. meanwhile, to stay in touch, you can subscribeto aiguillages newsletter at www.aiguillages.eu,

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