Our other collections
Collection history
There was once a man who was very passionate about the railroad of yesteryear, the one with the coal and the steam, wooden boxcars with carriage doors, with oil lamps for illumination, clocks called “railroad regulator clocks”, great big mechanics’ clocks, guarded crossings, speedy and slow, cars moved around by horses, workshops and their ironworks, hydraulic cranes and turntables, disc signals and multicolored checkered signals. This long-gone railroad was universal and anywhere that was even slightly important had its own station and its own smoking and whistling locomotives. Its meticulous organization and the qualities it required of its personnel made it sort of an institution.
Over a span of 27 years, this attentive, meticulous, and enthusiastic collector has assembled a unique collection that recounts the extraordinary époque of the French railroad, and it is displayed exclusively on www.avenuedeversailles.fr.
This collection is even more valuable than what the SNCF (French National Society of Railways) has put together, which after thousands of precious objects were scattered or destroyed, crushed under the steam hammers of Villeneuve-St-George or Bordeaux St Jean, contains hardly anything older than what was later assembled in the Mulhouse museum. The Crampton du Centenaire, for example, which is seen only during celebrations, has a very large lantern on the front, but this lantern has no reflector. The Railway Museum’s “Windbreaker” locomotive, former machine of the PLM, has a pair of lanterns in the front, but they are lanterns from the North and not from the Paris-Lyons-Marseilles line.
Our entire team hopes that, through the purchase of pieces from this collection, the collectors and friends of the steam railroad transportation system will know how to carry on the great moments of the French railroad industry. As for the amateurs and neophytes, we hope that they will also find the unique opportunity in this collection to cultivate their deco & design desires with a touch of history and vintage!
