Compagnie des chemins de fer Bône-Guelma


The Compagnie des chemins de fer Bône-Guelma built and operated railway lines in Algeria and Tunisia between 1875 and 1923 during the French colonial period. In 1923 it became the Compagnie fermière des chemins de fer tunisiens.

History

The Bone-Guelma Railway Company was founded in 1875.
The concession for construction of the line from Bone to Guelma, between the French government and the Société de Construction des Batignolles, was ceded by the latter in 1876 to the Bône-Guelma Railway Company, which had been founded by Ernest Goüin, with the assistance of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, of which Goüin was a director.
The Bone-Guelma company contracted with Batignolles to build the line.
It developed its network in Algeria and Tunisia with respectively and in each of the two countries.
The line had a station at Taya, eight kilometers by mule track from the Djebel Taya antimony mine.
The Algerian network was purchased by the State on 6 June 1914 and operated from 1 April 1915 by Algerian State Railways.
In 1922, the Tunisian government bought the Tunisian part of the network and entrusted operations to the Compagnie fermière des chemins de fer tunisiens by an agreement of 22 June 1922.
On June 8, 1923, a general meeting of shareholders took note of the change in the company's activities by changing its name to the Compagnie fermière des chemins de fer tunisiens.

Lines

Algeria

The total length of the network in Algeria was in 1913.
The company also operated the tramway from Saint-Paul to Randon.

Tunisia

In Tunisia the company operated two networks. The northern network was built at the normal gauge and the southern network used the metre-gauge.
The networks included the following lines:

Normal track (Northern network)