Known as the "train des Pignes", the train takes a metric gauge French railway line from Nice to Digne-les-Bains. It is the only remaining line of the former network of the "Compagnie des chemins de fer du Sud de la France", which became the property, from 1925 to 1933, of the "Société des chemins de fer de Provence".
The line, with a single metric track, is 151 kilometers long, including 16 bridges and viaducts, 15 metal bridges and 25 tunnels. The longest of these, the Colle-Saint-Michel tunnel, is 3,457 meters long.
At its exit towards Digne, the line reaches its highest point at an altitude of 1,023 meters.
Until the 1980s, the Saint-Auban to Digne line, with normal track, allowed connection to the national network.
From Nice one could then, with a change of equipment in Digne, reach Grenoble and Geneva by rail across the Alps.
This link was called Alpazur and the railcars of the train des Pignes proudly displayed the words "Nice - Geneva".
The service was provided by 140 employees. The line provides a parcel and passenger transport service.
The line is regularly threatened with closure and owes its survival to the support of local authorities and various associations. Until 2003, it was the only continental railway line open to regular passenger traffic that was not owned by RFF and not operated by SNCF.
The regular line operates all year round and offers 4 return trips per day between Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) and Digne-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). At an average speed of 60 km/h, the regular train connects Digne-les-Bains to Nice in 3 hours 20.
For the nostalgic or vintage lovers, the mythical steam train resumes service every year between May and November-December on a section of line between Puget-Théniers and Le Fugeret. A thick smoke then precedes the arrival of the locomotive with its varnished wooden benches and the smells of yesteryear !
The convoys are pulled by a machine classified as a historical monument and offer an extraordinary visit of the Nice hinterland and the Alpes de Haute-Provence.
Origins, origins...
The name "Train des Pignes" remains an enigma for many people.
Several explanations are thus proposed.
For some, the name would come from the soot that covered the locomotives and made them look like the bottom of Italian pots, the "pignates".
For others, it would come from the pine nuts that the townspeople brought back to town on Sundays.
For still others, the speed of the train was so low that it allowed passengers to go down to the side of the road to collect pine nuts.
Finally, some say the name came from a Christmas Eve miracle when a gatekeeper who was alone with her sick child ran out of firewood. A night train crew of railway workers stopped to offer her coal.
When the locomotive itself ran out of fuel, the pine cones from the trees along the track fell directly into the machine's tender, which was then able to continue its journey.
Most of these anecdotes and legends are, in any case, linked to the fact that the coastal and Central Var lines crossed endless pine forests.
https://www.traindespignes.fr/
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
(free version)
