She arrived like in the good old days on Sunday December 10, 2023 at 2 a.m. on the service road of the Sotteville-lès-Rouen marshalling yard. This Decapod 150-P-13, a huge steam locomotive with one carrying axle and five driving axles released from the Construction Workshops in northern France in 1941, is the new “baby” of the Pacific Vapeur Club.
Founded in 1983 by former SNCF agents, the association brings the railway memory of Rouen and Normandy to life mainly through the restoration and maintenance of the Pacific 231G558 steam locomotive from 1922, its 22C367 tender, classified as a Historic Monument, and several dozens of cars, each more exceptional than the last. With nearly 400 members, including around fifty in charge of works, the club also has its reputation for the trips it organizes aboard steam trains of the past.
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The arrival of a new steam monster, the Decapod 150-P-13, is in these conditions an event which is linked to the present and especially to the future. The locomotive is 22.46 meters long with its tender, weighing 90 tonnes. With a maximum speed of 105 km/h, it was intended for the transport of freight between the North and Seine-Maritime, in particular to the stations of Rouen-Martainville, Sotteville-lès-Rouen and Le Havre.
This is the 13th in a series of 150 rows of cars in the 1960s. Since then, it was stored under a rotunda in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes) awaiting its possible entry into the Cité du train in Mulhouse among 37 other materials, as explained by Frédéric Polbos, president of the Pacific Vapeur Club and administrator of Unecto, the Union of tourist railway and museum operators.
SNCF Immobilier resold the Ardennes site to a railway manufacturer. “The SNCF therefore wanted to distribute the equipment to tourist train associations, with the support of Unecto. We applied for the Decapod so that it returns to its geographical scope,” recalls Frédéric Polbos. Bank. After checking the tracks and preparing for a four-day journey, the locomotive traveled on its axles, towed in a 260 meter long convoy, as it included another machine deposited in Arques (Pas-de-Calais).
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“Now she’s here,” rejoices the president of the Pacific Vapeur Club. The guys are being surveyed. It will be rehabilitated and we will put it back on fire in a few years. This is a real opportunity as part of our ecomuseum project. » Because the Pacific Vapeur Club is a real project factory. “First of all, recognizes Frédéric Polbos, we must complete the general overhaul of the 231G558 started in 2019. The chassis is ready, we are reassembling the engine, the axles are returning from Germany, we are still waiting for the boiler which must return from Gard during the year. We plan to carry out a complete reassembly within 18 or 24 months. »
At the same time, the association is restoring several cars and preparing the American-made locomotive 030TU13 which arrived in France as part of the Marshall Plan. “We picked it up from our friends in Normandy Switzerland. It is in kit form and will be rebuilt to serve as a small school machine to learn how to make steam. It will inevitably enter our future ecomuseum on the equipment of the SNCF of the West network. »
A trip for the anniversary of the Landing
The work of the expert working committee on this project has begun. “We are awaiting confirmation of the purchase of the land by Métropole Rouen Normandie from SNCF,” explains the president. But, in order not to lose the link with its members and the public, the association still offers its trips “thanks to the rental of historic diesel or electric locomotives until the return of steam”
In 2024, a charter is planned for Sunday June 9 to Caen and Bayeux on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. On September 14, head to the Grande Braderie in Lille, on September 21 it will be the European Heritage Days and on November 16 the herring festival in Dieppe. “The Pacific Vapeur Club is as alive as the train,” confirms its president. It becomes younger and more feminine. » And not just because it says A locomotive.