A diary of Tramway Demiel

Dont worry Bill, it gets you like that sometimes! I must be cracking up but after a few hours research last night I realise that I am a complete landlubber when it comes to boats! What I have built is not a fishing boat at all but a 'Gabarre' These were sailboats dedicated to carrying goods up and down the rivers of France. In the Dordogne they carried 90 per cent of goods such as lace and foods between Bordeaux and Bergerac. They also, wait for it..carried a lot of the chemicals used in the papermills which the railways refused to carry. ~
(they changed their minds quite quickly though!). so its a Gabarre, whose owners were quite proud of their craft, so I think a little lining and decoration will be OK!

Mikey

Ah, now Mikey searching for the word Gabarre gives some very interesting results as I am sure you are aware on Delcampe:









There are loads more too, so I won't bore everyone rigid with posting each and every one... however, this other one caught my eye:

- interesting view of a dockside/railwayside crane?

HeHe , funny how knowing the right word in French changes everything!! Gotta build one of those cranes now!!

Mikey

That crane in the last picture, Back2Bay6 models make one just like it. It's in fact based on the railway yard crane at Llangollen but if something very similar was used in France then it's probably a pretty universal design.

Most of those last pics are of canal/riverine/coastal barges rather than fishing boats.

In my experience almost every single owner names his boat, no matter what duty it performs unless its a tender to a bigger vessel. Sailors of old were a superstitious lot - some still are today - and giving your vessel a personality by naming her was a part of that whole way of life.

There were of course many industrial vessels like dumb barges and the like and vessels maybe owned by a company but crewed by employees that may not have been named but very generally speaking all boats are named.

Hi Mikey, you all seemed to be doing well on the explanations of the keel so didn’t cut in. A lot of river boats did not have deep keels as such to keep the drought down, just a keelson (bigger strip of wood down the centre of the hull to fix the planks too) they did use centre boards or lee boards (as Thames Barges) but they did carry internal ballast to keep things all stable, that was made up of anything available in the locality usually, or pig iron, lead pigs etc.

Thanks Martin and Peter. I seem to recall discussing these different size 'barges' on Peters thread. Anyway she's now called 'Mathilde' and has been touched up with some gold paint! pics later.

mikey

Ballast is important. I read the availablility/popularity of porcelain "china" in England grew with the tea trade; china was used as ballast in the tea clipper ships. Good thing too, since without it you wouldn't have a nice cup for your tea.

French Chuffed wrote:

Hi Mikey, you all seemed to be doing well on the explanations of the keel so didn’t cut in. A lot of river boats did not have deep keels as such to keep the drought down, just a keelson (bigger strip of wood down the centre of the hull to fix the planks too) they did use centre boards or lee boards (as Thames Barges) but they did carry internal ballast to keep things all stable, that was made up of anything available in the locality usually, or pig iron, lead pigs etc.

Ditto me....

Being a former a boat owner and inhabitant (err....intinerant.... ).

Narrow boats don't have keels...usually..... but as Peter said many river (sailing) barges had removable boards.
I ballasted my narrowboat myself, character building stuff at the time.

Une' gabarre' by the way is called a 'scow' in English, which comes from the Dutch word 'schouw'.
Modern scows are used for racing but originally they were flat bottomed sailing barges.

Oh, you were a narrowboat owner at one time were you, Carl? I used to do a lot of boating on the English canals, either crewing a friends 58 footer or the steam narrowboat 'President'. I was a member of the society that ran her. I distinctly recall shovelling 12 tons of coal one sunny day from a dumb barge at the Birmingham museum onto the coal wharf where President and various museum engines would draw fuel from. I don't think I've ever sweated so much as that day!

hustle and bustle at the papermill with the arrival of a gabarre loaded with barrels of sulphate;



and the crane;



Mikey

Lovely scene, you're doing a grand job there.

Great scene, that - superb boat, and that crane too.

On the subject of your river, Mikey, does it 'flow' or is it a very long, very narrow pond?

Long narrow pond at the moment Clive, but when we extend the line the river will reappear so it will look like it passed around the village.

Mikey

A minor technical issue I know, but you could use 1 wagon's length worth of track to the left of that point so the workmen can actually switch sidings! Shift one of those rocks maybe?

Good suggestion Martin. Will do!

Mikey

How far do those rocks extend? If you have more track you could run a length down there and providing you have some more concrete tile to use as dockside maybe extend the wharf frontage in front of that building?

Good idea Martin, but I tried that before I came up with putting everything for the mill on a one metre square concrete slab. Many moons ago Carl posted a fascinating site of a papermill in Paris where the tracks were by Decauville and that was the flavour i have tried to capture. The river frontage and wharf area is a complete afterthought. The good thing is that i am about to extend the line by 10 metres to another waterfront village so who knows what might be modelled there?

i like it when people suggest different things, it gets the imagination going!!

BTW the line is open to the public in two weeks for the communes fete!!

Mikey

Will this be the grand opening by the local Mayor? Are you expecting many visitors?

You really amaze me, Mikey. You get an idea and 24 hours later voila there it is in the flesh, and pretty convincing as well. Not only that, but usually made from the scraps and kitsch you happen to have laying about. Encroyable.

story of my life Bill!. Met the wife like that as well! Yes Clive, Monsieur le Maire will cut the ribbon and then all the little blighters will run across my track!..NOT. Signs will be up, but it depends how many are interested. Theres at least a thousand visitors for the main fete!

Mikey

Thinking about extending the line and wondering what to do. A couple of guys who were just passing .stopped to look at the line and we were talking about the fictitious history and the Entrepreneur from Paris; Mr Benet, and they said 'oh wheres his posh house?" (yes they were English!). It got me thinking about building a proper chateau with grounds et al where the line would have been extended to his own private halt, or the house could be opened to the Public. Anyway it would be the first thing anyone would see so would have to be pretty impressive. Dont think i'll do this one in just a couple of days!!

Mikey

Well its official now. The comite de fetes visited this morning and approved the opening on Saturday 15 May. We'd still have opened then but with their approval it means we can take money for drinks etc with no problems (its all going to charity anyway). so it will be a mad rush to finish the ballasting ( using wood ash now and works really well), g scale bunting and flags to prepare and various other things. should be fun!!

mikey

Mikey, i am curious about this wood-ash ballast - in my simple brain i have a vision of the ballast sailing away in the wind - how are you fixing it down? I'd love to see some pictures of the track ballasted in this way

Good luck with the open day too, hope you raise lots of money

hi Clive. We have a woodburner fire and wood central heating, so we get through a lot of wood during the winter. during the course of research i discovered that many moons ago wood ash was used as a cement substitute. Its true because the heap of wood ash (ideal for the garden, high in potash and potassium) is rock hard. I 'riddled' it to get rid of the lumps, shovelled it on the track and then spread it firstly with a scraper and then with a paintbrush and its been down a week ( lot of sun and several downpours), and hasn't moved an inch. It also looks authentic! i'lll take some pics tomorrow and post them

mikey

Bought this on free-bay just now;



comes with sound, smoke and lights, runs on 9v. The plan is to change the body for the plastic Tram body that Carl is going to send me (when he's feeling better of course). theres also 18 foot of track which will be an independent circuit around the planned chateau

Mikey