Gaude Mine

At the beginning of mining, miners used a "descenderie," a sloping gallery, to reach the extraction shafts. Then, in the 50s, a "headframe" was built with an elevator to facilitate the descent. This is because the activity was located as low as -310 meters!

Formerly, the ore was sorted on site at La Gaude. But a tunnel was to be created to reach the station directly. 3,5 km long, it was completed in 1928. It passed under the Mont d'Or and thus connected, along a gentle slope, the Gaude square to the station square. It was an electric shunter that brought two convoys of 150 wagons (or draisines) there. This is where we saw an example when arriving in Manosque from Aix. Note that it was one of the first to be installed in France and that it will never break down.

Here, at the station gate, at the tunnel exit, the coal is dumped and then sorted in a sorting building. Women will participate in this activity. Once the work is done, a new, conventional diesel locomotive takes over, heading south to the SNCF station, where a transfer platform allows the coal to be dumped into SNCF wagons for final delivery. Other rails run north to dump the coal waste.

A bridge, marked with the acronym AFC, enabled this journey and is still visible from the Moulin Neuf side.

A little further on, the waste formed a long slag heap. It was leveled for the construction of a high school; part of it remains rehabilitated as a motocross track before the level crossing.

Source: http://www.bassesalpes.fr/