Tramway de Fontainebleau was the public transit system in

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau ( , , ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Functional area (France), metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the Kilometre zero#France, centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a Subprefectures in Franc ...

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 ...

from 1896 until 1953. At its greatest extent the network comprised three lines.

History

As a royal town, Fontainebleau benefited from an early

Metre gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...

tram system. The first tramline linked the

Château A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking re ...

to the train station, and opened on 29 September 1896. On 20 August 1899 an extension was opened to Vulnaines. The third tramline to

Samois Samois was a lesbian feminist BDSM organization based in San Francisco that existed from 1978 to 1983. It was the first lesbian BDSM group in the United States. It took its name from Samois-sur-Seine, the location of the fictional estate of An ...

opened in 1913. The initial fleet consisted of eight small two-bogie tramcars, capable of carrying 36 passengers, plus six trailers. The motor cars were equipped with two 25 hp motors which gave them relatively high power. In 1910, three more tramcars were bought (numbered 12 to 14); these possessed a Brill truck 2.4 m wide, and were capable of carrying 39 passengers. In 1924 the CTF purchased four tramcars from the

Tramway de Melun Tramway may refer to: * Tramway (industrial), a lightly laid railway for uses such as logging or mining * A tram transport system (public transport vehicles running on rails) ** The tracks which trams run on (also a section of reserved track for t ...

, these were subsequently sold to the

Tramway de Cannes The Tramway de Cannes was a tramway system in the French city of Cannes.The tramway operated in 1900 and stopped in 1933. At the end of the XIXth, Cannes' population went on increasing and several public transport projects appeared. The first wa ...

after a fire had destroyed most of Cannes' fleet. The extensions to Vulaines and Samois closed in 1937 and the oldest tramcars were scrapped. The following fifteen years were uneventful and no changes to operations were made. Even though the tramway was generally well kept, the

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

was proving to be easier to operate and the tram closed on 31 December 1953.

Tramcars in preservation

Fontainebleau tramcar n° 11 is currently preserved in Paris by AMTUIR. The car was put into service around 1900 on the

and was one of the batch purchased by Fontainebleau in 1910; it was withdrawn in 1945. The tramcar was rescued from a scrapyard in

Maisons-Alfort Maisons-Alfort () is a Communes of France, commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. Maisons-Alfort is famous as the location of the National Veterinary School of Alfort. The Fo ...

and preserved on 26 October 1957.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tramway De Fontainebleau

Metre-gauge railways in France Fontainebleau