The Chemin de Fer Touristique du Tarn (CFTT), or Tarn Light Railway, is a

narrow-gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...

light railway near the village of

Saint-Lieux-lès-Lavaur Saint-Lieux-lès-Lavaur (, literally ''Saint-Lieux near Lavaur''; Languedocien: ''Sant Lionç de La Vaur'') is a commune in the Tarn department in southern France. See also *Communes of the Tarn department The following is a list of the 31 ...

, in the vicinity of Saint-Sulpice in the department of Tarn,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It is run as a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...

by a French association, the ACOVA (''Association pour la Conservation Occitane de Véhicules Anciens'') incorporated in 1975 and based in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

. It operates on a gauge and the line was reconstructed from 1974 over a length of on the trackbed of the former line from La Ramière to Saint-Sulpice which operated only from 11 April 1925, to 20 June 1931. The line starts from the Saint Lieux-lès-Lavaur terminus at the former station ex-TVT and follows the streets of Saint-Lieux till a long viaduct over the river

Agout The Agout or Agoût (; ) is a long river in south-western France. It is a left tributary of the Tarn. Its source is in the southern Massif Central, in the Haut-Languedoc Regional Nature Park. It flows generally west through the following depar ...

. Then it runs in the Tarn countryside and woods before arriving at the present terminus at les Martels. The ACOVA owns five

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

s, among which three are operating and four are considered as ''

monuments historiques () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, ...

''. One of them is coming from

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

and was originally in the 500mm gauge (

Decauville Decauville () was a manufacturing company which was founded by Paul Decauville (1846–1922), a French pioneer in industrial railways. Decauville's major innovation was the use of ready-made sections of light, narrow-gauge track fastened to st ...

0-4-0T) and the others have been adapted from gauge hardware. The Tarn Light Railway is operating from begin of April to the end of October, on Sundays and holidays, and every day of the week in July and August. The trains perform a one-hour travel between the ''Saint-Lieux'' station and the ''Les Martels'' terminus. It is planned to extend the line to reach the hamlet and chapel of Saint-Cyriaque. As of 2008, the current ridership is 24,000 per year.

Steam engines in working order

References

"Tramways a Vapeur du Tarn" (English Language) Author - Sarah Wright, Publisher - The Oakwood Press

External links

CFTT, official web site
{{coord, 43, 45, 51, N, 1, 45, 46, E, region:FR-81_type:landmark, display=title Tarn 500 mm gauge railways in France Railway lines in Occitania (administrative region) Monuments historiques of Tarn (department) Tourist attractions in Tarn (department)