I've just finished a 4-hour activity, making it possible for me to discover the whole span of the route depicted below. I thought it'd be a great opportunity to take screenshots and share them with you, as some of your fellow countrymen have moved to this part of France. I hope you'll enjoy the journey.
We are in the middle of the 1970s, on a beautiful summer's day, about 3 pm. Since it's the beginning of the summer holidays, many tourists are heading for the South and regular services are not enough to meet the demand. That's why you've been assigned to an exceptional service between Limoges and Toulouse, along the two last fifths of the historical POLT line (Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse) – you're lucky, it's the most interesting one! You'll have to follow the regular service closely and smoothly.
Welcome to Limoges, well-known for its porcelain and its gorgeous railway station called "Gare des Bénédictins".
As the SNCF (the French railway company) changed both its corporate identity and rolling stock in the 1970s, train compositions used to be rather colourful. Here is our train.
The green livery perfectly suits her, isn't it? She was made in 1967 and claims less than 10 hitches per million kilometres.
All the brand new Corail carriages are full (first come, first served!) and the latecomers will have to cope with these ageing "USI" carriages. (Almost) comfortably installed in their seat, they'll have nearly four hours to spend drawsing, reading a book or listening to music with their revolutionary portable cassette player directly imported from Japan. How about enjoying the scenery?
Now that you've reached the cab, you decide to wait for the signal to clear; remember you're following a train having the same destination as yours. And it tends to be slower than you, so there's no hurry.
See, a freight train's coming!
Oil crisis? What oil crisis?
Once the signal has been cleared, we're leaving the station. A gas-powered "Turbotrain" is passing us; it goes from Bordeaux to Lyon.
Now the first junction. There are two ways of going from Limoges to Brive-la-Gaillarde: the east one via Uzerche and the west one via Saint-Yriex-la-Perche (weird names, aren't they?). The latter isn't fully electrified and double-tracked, so we take the first one.
Crossing the river Vienne
Somewhere south of Limoges
Passing Solignac - Le Vigen station (sorry for the timetable)
Along the river Briance
Speeding across the countryside (70-75 mph max, though).
Passing Pierre-Buffière station
Crossing the A 20 motorway
Passing Magnac-Vicq station
Our train leaves after a one-minute stop at Uzerche station. Uzerche is a lovely medieval town perched on a hill inside a loop of the river Vézère. In times past, a metre-gauge line had been operated to join Uzerche and Tulle (the capital city of the Corrèze "département"); trains used to pass near the very center of Uzerche. Unfortunately and as too often, most of the track has disappeared since the 1960s; today you can take the former route by foot (viaducts included).
Passing a freight train
The track snakes in and out in the gorge of the Vézère, one of the many geological features of the Western Massif Central (an extended mountain range in central France). Not far downstream, the Vézère valley hosts some famous prehistoric sites such as Lascaux and Les Eyzies (World Heritage).
"Allassac ! Allassac ! Une minute d'arrêt !"
The engine easily pulls the eight carriages
Allassac should've been another small picturesque town.
Passing a works train
Passing Donzenac station at 130 kph (80 mph)
Finally, the arrival at the industrial city of Brive-la-Gaillarde, a major railway centre.
This is where the first part of our journey ends for now. If you liked it, I'll post the two other parts in separate threads not to make 56k modems explode.
Cheers!
PS: and thank you Messrs Fabard & Laufrais for your wonderful job!
[EDIT] Link: Part 2/3: Brive to Cahors
