Beyond Montluçon, Commentry, 03600 Fr.

This was the end of the last stage of this little steam excursion, up into the western slopes of the Massif Central, to the town of Commentry, and the train was hauled from Montluçon by two of these American built locomotives, one at each end.

It's a steep gradient from Montluçon, and the sound of the exhaust of the two locomotives reverberating off the rock faces as they climbed was truly spectacular! Over a thousand of these locos were built in America and Canada at the end of WW2, to replace French locomotives destroyed during the war, this one was built by Alco in Schenectady, NewYork in 1945, and is one of only four still serviceable.

1952 Welmy Six, f4.5/75mm Terionar lens, X2 yellow filter. Fomapan Ultra 200 in Caffenol C, 10 mins @21C. Scanned @1200dpi on Epson V500