AMTP in Pithiviers, France

[Dave Buczkowski]

Alain,
Bob is right, if you come visit us we’ll roll out the red carpet for our favorite French Two Foot Ami. I also have a solution to your track issues. Just send 20 first class round trip airplane tickets and an empty shipping container to the  WW&F. We’ll fill the container with Tampforce One (a/k/a Big Joe), our track tools and other implements of destruction and jump on the next Air France flight to assist you. We’ll even bring Fred, his chain saw and log splitter for any errant trees you may have.
Dave

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

Thank you so much Dave for the red carpet be sure a visit to Alna is on my bucket list . I'm not sure the AMTP owns such a carpet and I'm going to ask Sebastien our President to buy one for you and any other WW&F members that would come to Pithiviers. As regards your solution for our track issue I'll submit your kind  offer for the next BOD approvoal. Sure, bring Fred along but no need to load his favorite implements in the container because the main line nearest tree is miles away. Wind mills are the only things he could fell , saw and split in Beauce. I doubt it'll work out for locomotive fire up.
Best regards.

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

SOME NEWS FROM THE AMTP
Hello, the AMTP operating season has been underway since Easter and I'd like to give you some news.
AMTP made it big again for the Easter egg hunting trains with 707 riders during the weekend.
 Late May the 2018 General Meeting was held. Around 40 out of 106 members attend the meeting, in the heyday AMTP had 250 members. Ridership in 2018 was 5944, only 3789 in 2013. Given the income and expenditure account, overall spending was 54,730$ , operating income 51,118$, subsidies only 2,998$ and exceptionnal income 6,814$. No donation out here.There was an election to the BOD that comprises 8 members. The eldest, the former President, is 74 and the just voted youngest member is 22. The officer average age is only 34.
Early June the Steam Festival was held. This year it was joined together with a large model train layout show that took place in a concourse located in downtown Pithiviers. There were combined fares and a free of charge shuttle bus ran between the concourse and Pithiviers Museum station. the weather was lovely and 619 people rode the trains during the weekend.
The week after that event a team of 6 volunteers lead by Sebastien Delforterie the AMTP President achieved a sort of feat of engineering. On June 6th early in the morning, the boiler of the DFB 080 MTP #4 came back from a shop located in southern France where it underwent its hydro test after the flues had been replaced. Saturday in late afternoon the engine was already put together and first fired up. After fixing a few leaks the locomotive was fired up again Sunday nigth and  the pop valves lifted properly. Thursday 13th only one week after the boiler had come back # 4 boiler underwent successfuly its steam test and the engine is by now in running order.
I'll soon tell you about safety on the AMTP , a critical isssue.

[John McNamara]

Thank you for the update. It sounds like things are going well. Congratulations and best wishes!

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

Hello John , Thank you for your congrats and wishes. Yes things are going much better  all due to the new , young leadership that has the can-do attitude. Not only the riderdership is on the rise but the volunteer number as well and the newcommers are mostly young. When I thought of the 5 years' back situation i'ts quite a miracle.

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

 Hello you all ! If you can do it and interested of course, give a look on my fb page Alain Delassus. I just posted  a You tube  link to watch a nice video about the AMTP on a Steam Festival day.

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

SAFETY FIRST !
Hello ! I'm going to tell you the story of the safety on the AMTP that is as long as the AMTP story because one can't separate railroad and safety. Of course safety is a major concern on the WW&F and on the AMTP but it seems to me that the both associations have a different approach to that issue and I think it would be interesting to compare. Moreover I'm myself  very much interested in RR signalling system and operating rules. I'd like to find about how it works on the WW&F as regards safety.
In 1966 the AMTP was the very first French tourist RR and those who created it weren't railroaders but enthiousasts who still knew that safety was a paramount issue when it comes to operating a RR line and carrying passengers.  In those days ,I should say in those happy days, the French law ignored  that new kind of rail activity as regards safety and believe it or not, that situation will last for over 30 years.
No railroad without safety and no safety without a rulebook.  Fully RR safety-conscious the AMTP first leadership released a 7 page rulebook in late 1967. Seven years later in 1974 a  9 page new rule book is implemented due to the installing of two mechanical signals namely a home signal interlocking with the engineshed switch and a stop signal at Pithiviers Station exit. I've already told you about those signals. See replies # 49 and 74 above. Plus the new rulebook reminds the volunteers the switching hand and whistle signal code that is actually the same as the French Nationnal RR Company,SNCF.
To be continued...
BTW if you are interested in the AMTP life, feel free to go pay a visit to my fb page ,Alain Delassus aka Uncle Scrooge, you'll see tons of pictures from now and from the past and don't worry blurbs and captions are mostly translated in English for you ,just look for the Stars and Stripes on the page. CU soon!

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

SAFETY FIRST!  Part 2
Hello ! 14 years later, in 1986, a new rulebook is drawn up by Jean Paul Balensi an executive on the SNCF and the the AMTP train master. That 11 page booklet is named Règlement Générale de l'Exploitation, in English railroad operating rulebook. It takes into account and codifies the new uses and practices that have appeared on the railroad for 14 years due to the changes in the operation of the railroad and the run of the trains such as the midway cross over at Les Carriéres in 1978, traffic lights at the grade crossing # 1 in Pithiviers in 1986 and a radiotelephone between Pithiviers Station and the buffetcar in Bellébat in the early eighties. In 1996 this rulebook is updated due to the new Bellébat site layout. Moreover it takes into account the  safety recommendations of the UNECTO an union that has  recently gathered the tourist railway operators and represents  them to the French Administration.
To be continued...
Feel free to pay a visit to my fb  if you are interested in the AMTP life and story. Blurbs and photo captions are mostly translated into English.

[Bob Holmes]

Jason, you might be interested in getting a translated copy of their latest rulebook as you work on ours.

Alain, can it be easily translated?

Bob

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

Hello Bob,
I woud be happy to help Jason of course but the AMTP rulebook comprises 184 pages whose core called the Règlement de Sécurité de l'Exploitation in English Operating Safety Rules comprises 43 pages. I'm afraid it'll be far too long to translate. By the time I 'am through with the translation Jason will have long updated the WW&F one . The French tourist RR rulebooks are written following a pattern called technical and regulatory reference frame or technical standards drawn up by the Transport Administration bureau in charge of the safety of tourist RR. Fortunately there is an English issue of it that you can find on the net if you log on to http://www.strmtg.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Technical_standards_CFT.pdf but I strongly doubt that it will help Jason. Things seem to me to be so different on each side of the Pond as safety goes, actually not the rules itselves but the way to teach and  apply them. Keep following my column SAFETY FIRST on this forum to know more . On the other hand I would be very very interested in getting the WW&F rulebook when it is updated because I'm safety-conscious and the main writter of the AMTP rulebook.

[Bob Holmes]

Thanks Alain.  I suspected it was just a wild shot in the dark.  Jason is coming along wonderfully on the new (SAFETY FIRST) rulebook for the WW&F.

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

SAFETY FIRST  Part 3

Let's resume the safety story ! At the turn of the century there were a lot of booming tourist railroads in France ,some of them were very  popular and successful  and carried  hundreds of thousands riders a year . In some part of the country the tourist RR even were  the main tourist attraction. Tourist RR were approved and as often in France financially backed by the local and even national authorities.
In France the State must protect the citizens and property. In 2003 in turn of its baking the government made the tourist RR operator take active and efficient steps to protect their riders. Within 2005 every tourist RR operator had to fill out and submit for the Department of Transportation approvoal a Safety File in order  to get a compulsory license that allowed them to go on operating their railroad for 10 years.
The Safety File had to comprise 3 main documents. The Règlement de Sécurité de l'Exploitation,RPE, I can translate into safety operating rules, the Plan d'Intervention et de Secours  ,PIS, that states the procedures that must be followed in case of major or minor accident and to finish with the Règlement de Police de l'Exploitation,RPE ,that states the behavior and rules the riders and visitors have to follow to keep themselves safe,of course the RPE is put up in the depot in the museum and in the cars.
To write each of these documents the tourist RR operator had to follow a pattern issued by the Transportation Department which regulation body is in charge of the rules and regulations enforcement and can investigate if need be. Since then the regulation body inspector has come to Pithiviers to check if the volunteers comply with the rulebook and if the track and equipement meet the technical standards issued by the Department every two years.
To be continued....

[Roger Cole]

Alain - totally off topic.  I watched a video on your Facebook page.  I noticed the train crossing a road and it had a classic STOP sign in English.  I'm surprised it wasn't in French.

[Bill Baskerville]

When I was in France this summer I noticed the same thing in the south of France. The signs were in English.  I also noticed that in Spain last year. What gives?

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

Hello you both ! The birth in the French language of the name, stop, and of the verb, stopper, which in the imperative is stop! goes back to the thirties. So when  in 1952 France implemented that roadsign there was no understanting issue and it was shorter than the French word, arrêt, you can notice in Quebec on the stop roadsign. In France  non- stop is a byword for continuously and hitch- hiking is tranlated into auto- stop. To come back to the railsignalling, on the SNCF there are two  signs meaning you must stop at the foot of the sign, first one shows the word STOP the engineer must stop then move forward  unless otherwise  kind of like a motorist, the second one shows the French word ARRET the engineer must stop  and call the signal tower on the phone or by radio for instructions unless he is signalled  to move forward.