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Chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine

Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine, (AL), (The Alsace and Lorraine Railway Administration) was a French government administration created in 1919. It managed and operated the Alsace and Moselle railway network and, temporarily, the Guillaume-Luxembourg railway network. It disappeared with the creation of the Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF) in1938. From 1871 to 1918, the Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg railway networks were operated by the Imperial General Directorate of Alsace-Lorraine Railways (EL). The armistice in 1918 required Germany to hand over the railway lines operated by the EL, with their personnel and equipment, to France. After the reintegration of Alsace-Lorraine into French territory, the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est, which operated these networks before the annexation, did not want to take them over. Indeed, the trains there ran on the right side according to the German model and all the signals were located to the right of the tracks, whereas in the rest of France, trains ran on the left and the signals were placed to the left of the tracks. This particularity still exists today in the current departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle. The Alsace and Lorraine Railway Administration (AL) was then officially created by the decree of June 19, 1919, issued by the Commissioner General of the French Republic. By a decree of 30 November 1920, the railways of Alsace and Lorraine were placed under the authority of the Minister of Public Works.  In January 1930, the AL eliminated the fourth class introduced in 1906. At its last inventory, on December 1937, the AL had 1,332 locomotives, 45,967 wagons, 3,390 cars, 34 railcars, 83 mail wagons and 1,065 vans. It employed 39.039 railway workers, for 2.320 km of railway lines. In 1938, the AL and the les chemins de fer de l'Est formed the Eastern SNCF Region, whose management was based in Paris and the sub-management in Strasbourg,

January 18th 2025

 

 
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