This week we're talking about a railway museum situated in an operating station in the Paris region.
It is served by TER, it is called Rosny-Rail as it is situated in Rosny-sous-Bois
in the Seine-Saint-Denis department and it's about the history of the railway and railroaders.
Welcome to Aiguillages!
Rosny-Rail is set up in the Paris region in the basement of Rosny-sous-Bois station.
You have no excuse if you don't take the train to go there: it is accessible from Paris-Est station
by the RER line E, while TER and other mainline trains only cross it without stopping there.
We're on the Paris-Est Mulhouse-Ville line.
A first station was built here in 1856 but as it became too small it was replaced by the present building
built in 1912.
The museum that is set up in the station basement
was originally supposed to house a railway model making club.
Rosny-Rail has few rolling stocks as it's main goal is to tell the life of railroaders
and the history of the railway.
However, before entering, you can ride a classical draisine or a pump car
according to you mood and courage.
The museum was created in 1997, it's not about rolling stocks, it's about the life of railroaders
and the history of the railway, we start from the beginning with steam engines
and we tell people about how it worked, we tell them about station masters, lamplighters, drivers,
mechanics, gatekeepers, all railroaders.
The museum has several themes: when we enter we dive into the atmosphere of the 20s and 30s
we have a counter like there used to be at that time, then we tell about railway tracks and how they're built,
we have another room dedicated to steam and then another one for signals and one for TGV of course,
a control center and 2 driver cabs.
We explain how trains are operated, we recreated a suburban train from the East line
as we're in the East region and we have another cabin, a 68,000 with its engine.
You have to come see the engine and hear it, we'll tell you how it works, there's a catch!
Rosny-Rail was somewhat created by chance, thanks to members of a model making club
who were looking for premises.
It was created in 1997 by a group a friends from a railway model making club based in Noisy-le-Sec,
they were looking for premises there, as SNCF has many premises they thought they could get an empty one
so they contacted the Paris-Est Communications Department who told them
they had a former checkroom in Rosny-sous-Bois that would be nice for them,
they were mainly looking for premises to practice model making in, and when they entered these premises
as they were also collectors, each one had lamps, caps, nuts and bolts, lots of materials,
so they thought it would be nice to turn this space into a museum.
That's how they created this museum!
The counter is not a real one, there are many false things in the museum, it's easy to make a counter,
we used wood and glass.
So they put their collection there, they signed an agreement
with the Paris-Est Communications Department which is the SNCF, and with Rosny-sous-Bois
as the city hall provided financial and technical support for the museum to open, they sent painters,
the SNCF took care of signals, Cité du Train also helped
as well as COPEF that's part of the founders and of course the Noisy-le-Sec railway club.
Let's enter the museum and get on board the cabin of another machine
to discover the secret around its engine.
Here you are on board a 68,000 cab, n°68,530 exactly, we got it from Chalindrey,
we cut the front part, we got the control panel, the windows, everything that's inside, its apparels
and we've been operating it for several years, 80% of the control panel is in working order,
we're only missing the tachometer that we're repairing and the VACMA which is the emergency brake
that some call the dead man's switch.
The control panel works, the engine works, signals work, 80% of the machine works.
We only have to add the tachometer, our brakes work,
we have an independant brake and a brake pipe that both work.
We explain to the public how to start a diesel locomotive and the difference from steam engines,
a diesel machine cannot be started like a car in a garden nonetheless, it takes about 30 minutes to prepare,
drivers have to check their machine even though it was prepared in workshops,
and it's filled with gas, with diesel, drivers have to control everything in their machine before leaving,
they check brakes, sandblasting, diesel and oil levels and he checks all apparels.
Then they can start their machine and make their train outside the depot,
before that of course they go to the office where they're given a document including information about their train,
so that they know which cars they're going to use and their timetable.
This is what we tell the public: the life of a train driver.
The engine works, as I was saying 80% of it works for now, we still need to include the tachometer
and the emergency brake, everything else works.
We can activate the emergency brake from 2 places, first a signal sounds in the cabin
and if the driver doesn't do anything there's a second signal and the train stops.
You can activate it near the wheel or near the pedals, both work at the same time.
This is made by a museum volunteer, he's a retired electronic engineer who works at home to make this.
He makes everything himself, we just got the control panel and there were many wires,
we had no idea what they were for so we had to find where they were connected
and then understand how it worked and we made electronic programs on cards
to operate the engine, the control panel, the machine.
Of course they got many original items from a real machine, but it's not the case for the engine
whose operation is simulated by sound recording, which is the great secret of this life-size driving simulator.
Another cab is set up in the museum, it operates trains running on the layout.
As the museum is mainly dedicated to the history of the railway,
let's take a look at these numerous layouts tracing it.
They were made by Robert Gesuelli who invented a technique to create figurines.
I'll tell you more about it in another Aiguillages episode.
Robert has a passion for history and not only that of railway.
Childhood memories led him to make these layouts.
When I was small I used to live near the Pasteur bridge over Montparnasse station
and when we crossed it we would walk in the smoke and steam of trains,
that's how I got into a railway atmosphere and unfortunately one day a wall replaced the parapet
and we couldn't see trains anymore, which was a real tragedy in my life!
Then trains became electric and they didn't have the same charm.
This double tragedy led Robert Gesualli to get interested in model making,
through which he relives his memories and he can express his passion for history.
Model making is a good way to get interested in history, we can't create stupidly, we have to investigate
and little by little we get to know more about various eras in history which I am interested in.
I started with prehistory and dinosaurs, then prehistoric men, Antiquity, everything in history!
But I chose to reproduce only railway and especially trains from the steam era
which is when I grew up.
I'm not interested in just operating trains, seing trains run is nice, it's pretty but that's not what I want,
just maneuvering is not enough, I want to create, to build, so little by little I made a rolling stocks collection
including locomotives, what I liked about kits was that I saw how I could modify them to get what I wanted.
At first I did like everyone else, I used metal, I cut and glued plastic and then little by little I included cardboard
and I realized it was much easier that way and that I could make nice things with it,
so I used it more and more until all my models were made of cardboard.
Robert built buildings and figurines as he didn't find what he wanted in store.
Before and after the war, trains were only running on rails, there were stations and control centers
but there weren't any sceneries, and then little by little during the 50s, 60s and 70s, sceneries improved
and now trains are lost in them.
There are also more and more figurines included on dioramas.
Many people are good at making interesting scenes with plastic figurines from stores,
but there are many more possibilities when we make them from cardboard
as we can make costumes that we can't find in stores, especially when we want to cover historical topics,
there are few figurines from certain eras and countries and I'm all about old topics,
so I make old cardboard figurines.
I built an English trains collection and I followed Clive Lamming's advice
who said that rather than collecting various things, it was better to focus on a single era or type of machine
and so I focused on English trains from the 19th century, including the Victorian era
and I couldn't find any figurines to match this era in France, we could find English figurines
but English trains don't use the HO scale, instead they use the 00 scale which is 1:76 instead of 1:87
so I couldn't find any 1:76 scale figurine in France.
Again, I started making them with wires, pearls, matches, and then I included cardboard
and I made everything from cardboard as it's so much easier!
As promised, I'll tell you more about this story in another Aiguillages episode
as Robert invented a technique to create his figurines that is used by the Rail Club de Meaux women's section.
Rosny-Rail can be visited every saturday from 2pm to 6pm, and by appointment during the week
for groups and schools.
Next week we'll visit a club in the Lyon region: Chemin de Fer Privée de la Mulatière.
I'll show you its HO layout that can be seen by the public once a month.
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