HISTORY OF "TRAMWAYS DE LA SARTHE" NETWORK

The "Tramways de la Sarthe"

The district Council innovated one more time by granting in March 1880 to a Mr Falies the building of two railway lines from Baallon to Les Forges d'Atoigné and from Le Mans to Le Grand Lucé. This engineer recommends to set up railway lines along the roads. It is the principle of Tramways, also called Railways Upon the Roads (Chemins de fer sur route) or American Railways (Chemin de fer Américain), so named by reference to the continent where they were born.

The opening of these first lines takes place in 1882.

The "tramways de la Sarthe" Company then takes its turn.It is soon integrated into the Carel & Fouch_ group, a rolling stock builder at Le Mans, which has widely taken roots in western France (i.e. Ille et Vilaine, Loir et Cher, Orne, Loire Atlantique departments)

This network reaches the acme of its glory with 416km in length in 1922.