A Billard draisine, once circulating on the Réseau Breton and preserved by the ACFCdN.Share of the Anciens Etablissements Billard & Cie, issued 4. July 1928
Établissements Billard was a French railway rolling stock construction company founded in 1920 and based in Tours. It specialised in light railbuses and metre gauge and narrow gauge rolling stock. The business ceased trading in 1956 and later became Socofer.
Production
Draisines
Draisines : These worked on different VFILs, and for the "Big Companies" which became the SNCF.
Locomotives
Billard Locomotive Y 7200
T50
T75D
T75P
T75G
These were designed for the French Military Railway. They were used, among other things, to service the Maginot Line.
Three buses with bogies on a wide chassis worked on the Nord-Est.
A series of railbuses with two axles were built for the CFD and the SNCF in 1949 and 1950
A series of FNC railbuses were deployed by the SNCF
The solidity of the stock, and the simplicity of construction, means that many Billard engines are still working today.
Preserved Billard rolling stock
Locomotives
type T 50
type T 75, in several variants (with the series prototype, and some military examples) on the Tacot des Lacs, at the Train Touristique de Saint Trojan and later at APPEVA.
Trailing car XRD 242 from the Chemins de Fer Corse.
Notes
Sources
Riffaud, Jean-Claude (1982–1984). "Les automotrice Billard". Magazine des tramways à vapeur et des secondaires ("Steam tramways and secondary railways") (in French). 24.
^Jean-Pierre Crozet (2008). "Les autorails Billard-Soulé". Le chemin de fer franco-éthiopien de Djibouti à Addis-Abeba de 1900 à 1980 (in French). Archived from the original on 1 January 2009. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
