The French Collection

[Ali Smith]

Mick @Newportnobby was kind enough to reduce the offending photos of Le Soudrier for me. Here they are. Thanks Mick.





Next time there will be trains.

[Ali Smith]

Having arrived at the museum we gained free admission with our previously purchased City Passes.
On entering the first hall, we were confronted by various pieces of railway equipment lurking in the gloom and quite a lot of noise including occasional load bangs. We found that some of the rolling stock was adorned with rather unconvincing dummies and that much of the noise was their "conversations".
The grandest of the dummies was this one, apparently intended to represent Napoleon III in the Imperial saloon.



I say apparently because it doesn't look like any portrait I've seen of that gentleman.
The saloon was coupled to this engine which, if I remember correctly, is a Sharp, Stewart product.



Alongside the Sharp, Stewart was this imposing machine (it doesn't really have blue wheels).



All I can tell you is that it is a "mountain type" or 4-8-2. The French call this a 2-4-1 which is entirely rational but somehow doesn't feel right.
 
Here's another interesting-looking engine. It belonged to the PLM (Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée) and I only know that because it's written on the bufferbeam.



This signal box was fairly central in the hall. Whether it is genuinely from Mulhouse or not I don't know.



At the far end of the hall was a railway gun, mostly hidden by a tarpaulin, or maybe it was a camouflage net. Clearly this was the source of the loud bangs. Near here was an engine, a 1-4-0 I think, laying on its side as if having been derailed.

The final item in this hall I photographed was this velocipede, complete with red flag.



Had this hall been typical of the whole museum I would have been less than gruntled. It seems to follow a trend to create the atmosphere of the past for children, people who are not particularly interested and those with no imagination. That's understandable up to a point but it could be done just as well, maybe better, with replicas. There's also the question of which past as railway history covers 200 years.
Happily, the rest of the museum was much more to my taste. I hope to tell you about it soon.

[Newportnobby]

Oh dear. Napoleon III doesn't look at all well

[Ali Smith]

For somebody who died in 1873, I think he looks remarkably well.

[Bealman]

Looks like one of Jim Henson's Muppets 

[joe cassidy]

Maybe he is contemplating going into exile in England ?

[Train Waiting]

Thank you so much for this wonderful thread, Ali. Good jokes too.

It's a real tonic to read it and and I'm looking forward to more.

Anent the woollen motor-bicycle, we pinched the design for the Bantam from the Germans at the end of the War. DKW, I think. Maybe one of the French manufacturers did something similar.

With all good wishes.

John

[Ali Smith]

Thanks for the kind words, John@ Train Waiting. I'm glad to see you are on the mend.