Train des Pignes 2/2, Entrevaux ~ Nice (Chemins de Fer de Provence)

An awesome one carriage train ride from the mountains to the sea.
Entrevaux ~ Puget-Théniers ~ Touët-sur-Var ~ Villars-sur-Var ~ Malaussène-Massouins ~ La Vesubie / Plan-du-Var ~ Saint Martin-du-Var ~ Colomars / La Manda ~ Lingostière ~ La Madeleine ~ NICE, a ride alongside the river 'Le Var'.
'I'm a Train' - Albert Hammond; 'La Mer' - Charles Trénet
This private, 1-meter gauge railway runs between Nice and Digne-les-Bains,± 151 km/93 mi, and takes about 3½ hours. The track follows rushing rivers and steep-sided mountain valleys, many not accessible by car, and the view is magnificent.
In 1882 the military authorities gave their backing to the building of the railway. To cope with the steep terrain, the engineers adopted a metric-gauge system. In 1902 the construction work involved more than four hundred labourers, took nearly two years and had to deal with rock falls, floods and subsidence. The railway line finally arrived in Nice in 1911. In 1935 the line successfully reopened with diesel railcars replacing the steam locomotives. In 1967 the French government withdrew its involvement in the service. Thanks to the determined involvement of the local population, the line continued to operate.The stations are old, tiny and personal, with everything on a human level.
The origin of the train's nickname: 'Train des Pignes' (Pine Cone Train) is unclear.
1. The Train des Pignes was so-named because of the soot that covered the locomotives, making them look like the bottom of a traditional Italian cooking pot, named 'pignata'.
2. The steam locomotive was fuelled by pine cones (pignes) -- very unlikely considering the speed at which they would be consumed.
3. The pinecones were used as tinder to start the steam engines.
4. City folk used the train to take home pine cones on a Sunday.
5. The train travelled so slowly that the passengers could get out onto the trackside to pick up pine cones.
6. For the pine cones the crew used to stop to collect for pine nuts (edible seeds of pines).
7. Elderly women collected pine cones in the hills, usually the large cones from a pine called the pigne noir. They would collect the pine cones in large bags and leave the bags beside the railway tracks. It was a common sight for these bags of pine cones to be put onto the train as it passed, to be transported to the remote houses and farms for fuel.
8. Finally, the nickname comes from a miracle that happened one Christmas night when a level-crossing keeper who was alone with his sick child had run out of firewood. The crew of a night train stopped to give him some coal and then when the locomotive itself started to run short of fuel the pine cones on the trees lining the track fell directly into its tender enabling it to continue on its way.