Montbozon–Lure Line

The law of 17 July 1879, known as the Freycinet Plan, which classified 181 railway lines within the network of railways of general interest, included as No. 31 a line from Lure to Loulans-les-Forges via Villersexel.^[1]

The public inquiry into the Lure–Loulans railway was conducted from 11 September to 11 October 1882.^[2]

The line was provisionally granted to the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée under an agreement signed with the Minister of Public Works on 26 May 1883, and approved by law on 20 November 1883.^[3] The concession was made definitive when the line was declared of public utility by a law dated 15 July 1885.^[4]

The inauguration of the line took place on 8 November 1896.^[5] A special train carrying guests departed from Besançon at 7:12 a.m. Official representatives were received in Montbozon at 8:12 a.m. The inauguration train was scheduled to arrive in Rougemont (Doubs) at 11:00 a.m., where a banquet was held. At 1:00 p.m., the train departed for Villersexel, where monuments erected in memory of soldiers who had died for the fatherland were inaugurated. The train then departed from Villersexel at 4:00 p.m. and arrived in Lure at 5:00 p.m., where a closing banquet took place.^[6]

Opened on 3 November 1896 as a single-track line, the railway was closed to passenger traffic on 29 May 1940 and to freight traffic on 31 May 1987.^[7][8]

• Lure station [fr] provided full services for both express and local freight and issued return tickets within a radius of 100 km. The other stations and stops along the line offered the same services, except certain categories of traffic, notably horses transported in end-loading stable wagons, four-wheeled carriages with two compartments and two interior benches, as well as omnibuses, stagecoaches, and similar vehicles.^[5]

Three trains going up and three trains going down served these stations. The train schedules were as follows:^[5]

• 
  The bridge over the Ognon River in Montferney (municipality of Rougemont).
• 
  Villersexel station [fr].
• 
  The same station in operation.
• 
  Lure station [fr].

The section between Lure and Villersexel was reopened to freight traffic in February 2009 to supply materials for the construction of the Rhine–Rhône high-speed line. Rehabilitation work and the construction of an approximately 6 km connection to the high-speed line represented an investment of 10 million euros and were intended to reduce heavy road traffic by about 1,000 trucks per day.^[9]

The long-term preservation of part of the line was considered for the transit of Lorraine–Mediterranean high-speed trains, to link the Blainville–Damelevières–Lure line [fr] to the Rhine–Rhône high-speed line.^[10] This option was ultimately abandoned. The section developed between the original route and the high-speed line via the construction base was converted into a departmental road to bypass the town of Villersexel.^[11] Passenger transit between Lorraine and the Mediterranean regions was instead planned via the Belfort–Montbéliard high-speed station following the opening of the Belfort–Delle line [fr] to passenger traffic in 2016.^[12]

On 12 September 2012, the importance of the project was highlighted in a letter to the President of the Republic, signed by local elected officials from Thionville to Belfort and Haute-Saône.^[13]

The 8.7 km section between Villersexel and Bonnal was converted into a greenway in 2015 by the community of municipalities of the Pays de Villersexel [fr].^[14] By May 2019, the extension of the greenway from Villersexel to Lure was nearly complete and was scheduled to be inaugurated in June 2019.^[15]

• 
  Work in April 2008.
• 
  The start of the line from Lure station, renovated during the construction of the first phase of the eastern branch of the Rhine-Rhône high-speed rail line.
• 
  The bridge over the Ognon river converted into a greenway.

• List of railway lines in France