The archives of the Région Nord

Track and Buildings Department of the Région du Nord
General affairs
Files concerning the network as a whole, covering multiple themes:

• Level crossings
• Tracks
• Accidents and incidents
• Buildings and various constructions
• Transport
• Rails
• Tooling
• Circulars
• Conferences
• Occupation of public land
• Sleepers
• Committees, commissions and congresses
• Signalling

Local “line” affairs
Files concerning lines or sections of line:

• Works
• Damage
• Taxes
• Fires
• Claims
• Land and buildings (acquisitions, disposals, exchanges, etc.)
• Private sidings or works for third parties
• Occupation of public land
• Level crossings

Local “stations, halts and stops” affairs
Files concerning stations, halts and stops:

• Operational works
• Maintenance works
• Private sidings
• Urban sidings
• Port tracks
• Occupation of public land
• Land matters

Railway signalling
Archives and internal documentation relating to railway signalling: conferences of Track and Buildings arrondissement managers, signalling inspectors and signalling departments, a collection of general and regional orders, etc.

Operations Department of the Région du Nord
The CNAH holds a record series from the administrative secretariat of the director of the Région du Nord. It consists of individual files of staff arrested, imprisoned and deported by the Germans for various reasons (notably acts of resistance and theft), general documents on commendations and decorations (military medals, Ordre du Mérite, Légion d’honneur), and weekly regional conferences.

The archives of the Région du Sud-Ouest

Equipment and Traction Department of the Région du Sud-Ouest
Personnel
This collection allows a historical study of the situation of railway workers in the Equipment and Traction Department of the Région du Sud-Ouest during the Second World War.
It contains documents covering the following themes:

• Changes in staff numbers across SNCF as a whole
• Authorised staffing levels
• Mobilisation classes
• Staff subject to disciplinary sanctions during the Occupation
• Alsatians and Lorrainers temporarily or permanently transferred to the Sud-Ouest
• Staff arrested, imprisoned and sometimes deported by the Germans
• Railway workers who were victims of acts of war (bombing, strafing, sabotage)
• Staff subject to the administrative purge at the Liberation

The range of document types is varied: instructions, regulatory texts, correspondence, individual files, staff lists, statistical tables.

Derailments and collisions of trains and rolling stock
In record series 0084LM, we find documents of various kinds: enquiries and accident reports, photographs, judgments, etc.

State of staffing, immobilisations and use of motive power and rolling stock
Record series 0086LM contains inventories of rolling stock as well as statistical information on train mileage and tonnage.

Track and Buildings Department of the Région du Sud-Ouest
This collection contains files on military and Civil Defence matters concerning fixed installations (tracks, stations, halts), mostly created in the time of the Compagnie du Paris-Orléans. The range of document types is varied: plans, technical notes, correspondence, ministerial instructions.
It also contains files on the relocation of departments, as well as weekly reports of events concerning the French delegations to the Eisenbahn Betriebs Direktion of Paris-Sud, Bordeaux and Toulouse.

Operations Department of the Région du Sud-Ouest
Treaties and agreements for line operation
These files were mostly created in the time of the Compagnie du Paris-Orléans. They contain treaties, plans and correspondence.

Bordeaux Operations Arrondissement
The archived records deal mainly with the secondment of staff to the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

Limoges Regional Directorate
This collection consists of documents from the three regional departments (Track and Buildings, Operations, Equipment and Traction), whose main themes are:

• Disciplinary councils, disciplinary measures
• Amnesties (records of punishments and amnestied sanctions)
• Fatal accidents at work or while commuting, deaths in service

Bordeaux Regional Property Agency
Record series 1318LM consists of files dealing with the acquisition of land requisitioned by the Germans and damage caused to fixed installations by acts of war. It mainly contains photographs of destruction.

The archives of the Région de l’Ouest

Operations Department of the Région Ouest
This record series consists of individual staff files:

• Staff sanctioned for communism and anti-national activities
• Staff arrested, imprisoned and deported by the German authorities for various reasons (theft, acts of resistance, etc.)
• Staff injured by acts of war (workplace accidents)
• Medical files of work stoppages and discharges

It should be noted that the Centre national des Archives du Personnel holds career files and closed pension files, which may provide further information on the staff whose files appear in this record series.

Nantes Track and Buildings Arrondissement
Record series 0432LM consists of photograph albums:

• Reconstruction of engineering structures after the destruction of 1944-1945 (classified by line)
• Destruction of buildings

Le Mans Equipment and Traction Arrondissement
These are mainly reports from the depots of Le Mans, Chartres, Alençon, Château-du-Loir and Laval.
Several themes are covered:

• Daily staffing levels
• Daily record of bombings
• Civil defence and reconstruction
• State of locomotives
• Staff arrested and imprisoned for various reasons (theft, anti-German acts, resistance, unknown reasons, etc.)

The archives of the Région du Sud-Est

The collections held at SNCF’s Centre national des Archives historiques were compiled in part by the Operations Arrondissements of the Région du Sud-Est and the Région de la Méditerranée.

Social affairs
These files concern the various stations of the Valence Operations Arrondissement, around three main themes:

• Staffing levels
• Changes to authorised staffing levels
• Organisation of staff work

Transport

• Coordination of passenger transport by rail and road in the départements of Alpes-Maritimes, Vaucluse, Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence
• Drawing up or applying transport plans and traffic-sharing agreements.

Individual staff files
Several themes can be identified:

• Workplace accidents for the Lyon Operations Arrondissement
• Disciplinary measures for the Valence Operations Arrondissement (sanctions imposed by the occupying authorities, repression then amnesty for acts of collaboration, instructions sent to staff, information on deported staff.

Villeneuve-Prairie General Warehouse
These are archives of the Villeneuve-Prairie General Warehouse (from the PLM era, then the SNCF Région Sud-Est), notably files on the military situation of staff and files on trade unions.

Clermont-Ferrand Regional Directorate
Several themes stand out:

• Military organisation of the railways (relations with the army, technical delegation and military commissions, mined structures)
• Installations (equipment, national defence, civil defence)
• Management of military documents and regulations (demobilisation of the army)

The archives of the Région de l’Est

Track and Buildings Department

These files were compiled in the time of the Compagnie des Chemins de fer de l’Est and continued in the SNCF era by the Track and Buildings Department. They comprise numerous registers and cover the following themes:

• Signals, interlocking and safety measures
• Telegraphy and telephony
• Operations
• Accidents and incidents
• Maintenance of earthworks, track, engineering structures and buildings
• Acquisitions
• Land
• Stations, halts and stops, including military installations
• Engineering structures
• Level crossings and gatekeepers’ houses
• Private connections and concessions at stations
• Damage caused to the network (service dispatches, reports, photographs, plans, surveys, notes, correspondence). Under reference 0111LM0036/021, we find a classification plan relating to this theme.

Operations Department of the Région de l’Est

Here we note files on the organisation of the Région de l’Est, instructions and service notes of the time, presentations given and conferences held by various SNCF officials, as well as a few reports on operational accidents.

Noisy-le-Sec Equipment Arrondissement

The archives of record series 0414LM and 0434LM come from the Personnel Office of the 1st Equipment Arrondissement, based at Noisy-le-Sec in the SNCF Région de l’Est.
Record series 0434LM contains the archives of the Personnel Secretariat, around three main themes:

• Career progression
• Staff representation
• Social services

Record series 0414LM consists of archives relating to the Arrondissement’s staff during the 1939-1945 War.

Belfort Equipment and Traction Establishment: history of the depot
The Belfort Establishment had a dual role: both Depot and Maintenance. Until 1945-1946, it was attached to the Vesoul Traction Arrondissement for the Depot side, and to the Nancy Equipment Arrondissement for its Maintenance side.
The wartime archives deposited relate to Belfort Maintenance staff and cover the following themes:

• National defence (use of labour in companies)
• Mobilisation of staff
• Prisoners of war
• Secondment to the Deutsche Reichsbahn
• Requisition under the Service du Travail Obligatoire
• Hiring conditions in wartime
• Staff remuneration
• Staff imprisoned or deported
• Disciplinary measures
• Civil defence
• Liberation of the Belfort area
• Award of assistance to staff or families of staff injured or killed by acts of war
• Reinstatements and awarding of decorations
• Social welfare initiatives

Alsace Regional Directorate
Among the recurring themes:

• Demarcation of the Franco-German border
• Military affairs
• A few regulatory texts
• Private sidings