TRANSPORTS CITROËN – THE COACHES WITH CHEVRONS
1919: Europe emerges from the most deadly war in its history.
After faltering attempts at the beginning of the century the automobile has become established but its development is still dependent on the uncoordinated activities of a large number of small manufacturers.
André CITROËN, seeing a field of opportunities, reconverts his armaments factory and manufactures the first in a series of automobiles. It is through him that new levels of society will have access to owning a car.
1931: Despite his efforts, cars are still the prerogative of the well-to-do classes. He therefore decides to set up a Coach Company, making motor transport easily accessible to as many people as possible. This original idea from André Citroën was to criss-cross France with regular coach routes. At the time private motoring was still underdeveloped. Success came quickly justifying his idea and shortly after the TRANSPORTS CITROËN network covered a substantial part of the French countryside and for several generations TRANSPORTS CITROËN became part of people's daily life.
From 50 routes in 1932 growing to 219 in the following year.
In 1934, 238 routes and 600 coaches, with the brown and yellow T32s running 70 million kilometres a year.
The sign of the double chevron was a meeting point and the beige and brown coaches formed part of the events of life, whether customary or unusual, gay or sad.
By setting up cruises and records, André CITROËN wanted to highlight the sporting side of the automobile. By creating the TRANSPORTS CITROËN company he wanted above all to emphasise the social role, working on the well-being of man.
Starting the Networks
On 12th November 1931, the 'Société Anonyme des Transports CITROËN' was born in Paris. It had been created a few days before: 27th October 27 1931. Paul Joseph was appointed General Manager. With Louis Guillot he had launched the first heavy weight vehicles derived from C6 cars.
The physical organisation and implementation of the infrastructure will take several months. The first route chosen by André CITROËN must mark a grand start for TRANSPORTS CITROËN. This will be the Paris-Versailles route scheduled for 18th February 1932. The coaches are C6 2 tons G1 with 22 seats, departures will take place every 30 minutes in both directions.
But on 17th February 1932, on the eve of the inauguration, the twelve vehicles being in place at both ends of the route, Mr. Paul Joseph had to give the order, around 6:30 pm, to put the coaches back in their garages.
Indeed, M. Mariage, director of the S.T.C.R.P. (later RATP), concerned about the competition being deployed, obtained in-extremis the cancellation of the authorisation for opening the route by the Ministry of Public Works; the rights of the local public transit concessionaire being respected.
A strategic retreat was needed! Paris will not be the first network operated by TRANSPORTS CITROËN.
André CITROËN and Paul Joseph then turned to Lyon, where a powerful branch of Automobiles A. Citroën was to be established. The Lyon network was officially established in April 1932 and TRANSPORTS CITROËN moved to 41 rue du Lieutenant-Colonel Girard in Lyon. The first route to be operated effectively started on 1st June 1932, N ° 1 Lyon-Bourg.
From then on, the introduction of new routes accelerated and the Lyon network started two lines a week.
At the same time, on 8th June 1932, the Bordeaux network was set up, but it was to be sold at the end of the year to Transports CITRAM, a company that was founded in 1919. The Nantes network is located at 24 Boulevard Gustave Roch, and departures are operated as of 13th July 1932 with the N ° 1 route Nantes - Le Croisic.
The success of the provincial networks and especially the authorisations obtained in the big cities will make it possible to acquire PARIS.
In August 1932 the head office of the company is set up at 17 Boulevardes des Capucines in Paris. The first transport network, that of André Citroën, will make its mark. The point of departure is the Place de la Concorde. The first route will be N ° 1 Paris – Fontainebleau from 28th August 1932. During the following weeks the network is extended and within a radius of 100 kilometres most of the principal towns of the Ile de France are connected to the centre of the capital. At the 31st December 1932 there are 52 routes operating across the first four networks, totalling 3,716 kilometres in length, with a daily total of 70,585 kilometres run. CITROËN coaches transport 15,900 passengers a day, the Paris network alone operating 21 routes of 1,400 kilometres, with the coaches running 40,000 kilometres a day.
Six months after the number of lines grew from 21 to 49. It was necessary to give up having all of the routes run from Concorde and adopt three new termini: Porte Maillot, Boulevard Gouvion Saint-Cyr; Denfert Rochereau, rue Froideveaux; and Rotonde de la Villette.
The city Of Paris, owner of the Rotonde de la Villette, granted it to TRANSPORTS CITROËN. It was not until 1939 that the departures from Denfert-Rochereau were transferred to the Bastille, at the corner of the Quai de la Rapée. The garages were located in the rue d'Alsace in Levallois, next to the central repair garage, serving in principle the termini of Maillot and Denfert, then Bastille, although some vehicles remained in the garage.
La Villette was provided for in particular by the garage at Louis Blanc. Each bus station had a station master and his cashiers. Coach drivers took up duty in the garage or at the bus station if the coach was not in the garage.
The young company is going to have a difficult time. Guillot died in 1933 and André Citroën on 3rd July 1935. In 1934, the Law-Decree of Coordination of Rail and Road slowed down the expansion of the Company by imposing new constraints: the modification and the creation of routes are now subject to the authorisation of the public authorities. The objective? To avoid duplication between the coach routes and those of the SNCF, which became a state monopoly in 1937. Charles Mannheimer, polytechnic co-founder of TRANSPORTS CITROËN, succeeds André Citroën. With Paul Joseph, they will watch over the maturing of TRANSPORTS CITROËN.
The German invasion will cause disorder and exodus. TRANSPORTS CITROËN will not be spared. Paul Joseph in his 15CV Traction, a few buses and the archives of the company, left Paris on 11th June 1940. Charles Mannheimer who fled to Dijon, will have to go away again. Paul Joseph was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in the summer of 1940. The activity is considerably slowed down, the vehicles are scattered. They will be found in Holland and Portugal. The few vehicles that can operate are equipped with wood gasifier and others with charcoal.
Calm returns but recovery is slow. The post-war period did not bring any new equipment until 1948.
The post-war period was marked by both economic and automobile development. Private motoring led TRANSPORTS CITROËN to adapt its network to the new needs of its customers. The work involves transporting workers from factories to their homes, work for schools, serving aerodromes, etc.
Yet TRANSPORTS CITROËN will have their best period, that of the 1950s. But the spread of private motoring will seriously undermine the regular passenger transport routes, mainly that of the Paris network.
Large-capacity buses replace the old vehicles with only 20 seats. Vehicles of the type PH Berliet multiply in the fleet. In 1969, there are 850 coaches that provide 246 regular routes and cover 40 million kilometres per year, 10 times round the earth. They carry 12,000 schoolchildren per day and 30 million passengers per year. TRANSPORTS CITROËN are then beginning to diversify their activities to sectors other than regular passenger transport, such as coach tourism, freight transport, transport of new cars, travel agencies, car hire without driver, industrial vehicle rental ...
Always more new services!
The transport of goods and parcels already existed at the outset, in parallel with that of passengers. It became more important with the reorganisation of the network. Coaches carry 1 million parcels per year (with a maximum weight of 30 kg each), with a network of 2,950 correspondents and agents. In addition, more than 30 Berliet and Citroën trucks carry 12,000 tonnes of cargo per year from three main centres: Strasbourg, Mulhouse and Nantes.
The public's taste for sightseeing leads TRANSPORTS CITROËN to organise more numerous and more distant trips. They cater for all groups, associations or societies; some tours, prepared in advance, are offered to customers individually. This category of travel requires coaches that are more luxurious than route buses. Citroën then turned to BERLIET, which soon became a subsidiary of CITROËN S.A., becoming the preferred supplier with the "CRUISAIR 3". In 1971, the MAGIRUS DEUTZ coaches were introduced, and in 1975 an order was issued for VERNEY TD5 ...
The continuous development of tourism in all its forms led TRANSPORTS CITROËN to create a proper travel agency: CITER, license holder A. The name had been the subject of an ideas competition: it had to be borne in mind that it would have to recall the CITROËN name, that it be evocative of travel and that it is simple to pronounce in all languages. Of a list of 30 names, CITER appeared to meet all these conditions. On 3rd March 1967, the first travel agency opened its doors in PARIS, at the corner of rue de Vaugirard and rue Falguière at the initiative of Mr. WEISBECKER, CEO since 1964, and Mr. MOSNIER.
Other travel agencies followed at the instigation of Mr. CHALENCON in charge of this department in late 1968 (LYON, NANTES, LILLE, STRASBOURG, DIJON, BORDEAUX ...)
Self drive car rental (from 2 CV to 1,600 Kg van) was launched in June 1967. This was a market still very far from its saturation point. The experiment began in Lille and spread rapidly: 250 cars available in 1969 from the centres of Paris, Lyon, Lille, Dijon, Nantes, Angers, Clermont and Strasbourg. This activity foreshadowed vast development. 200 branches were opened in 1970. In addition, TRANSPORTS CITROËN transported new Citroën cars to French and foreign sales outlets. 200 cars and 50 trucks at the end of the 1960s. In 1963, this new activity took a major leap forward when the new CITROËN plant in Rennes La Janais was built to build the AMI-6s and TRANSPORTS CITROËN were buying 100 double decked trucks. Ten years later, the latest addition to the new activities is the leasing of industrial vehicles (LVI) with or without a driver but this will not have time to experience a major boom ...
It is also in 1965, that hydraulic suspension on coach type 60 DIP appears. The colours, which were originally brown with an orange lateral belt and then brown with blue-grey and the red side band, change again: this is the beginning of the Carrara white body with the carmine red band.
TRANSPORTS CITROËN strived to build a national network by licensing the CITER brand to all concessionaires who were willing to embark on this new activity. The name CITER was also applied in 1967 to the new activity of self drive car rental (L.S.C.). From 1969 TRANSPORTS CITROËN had the idea of creating an Economic Interest Grouping with all CITROËN branches and dealers. It will soon include several thousand cars ... It was a last straight line ...
April 1977: The S.C.F. (the holding company of the Verney Group) takes over the passenger transport activities and travel agencies of TRANSPORTS CITROËN by creating the Compagnie Française et Industrielle de Transports (CFIT), of which Mr. Yves Michel VERNEY becomes Chairman and CEO. Quickly CITER travel agencies take the new name of NORD-SUD-VOYAGES, the name of CITER remaining attached to the self drive car rental business taken over, as well as new car transport, by PEUGEOT S.A. and its subsidiary GEFCO. Much later North-South Travel will become Tourisme Verney Distribution.
The TRANSPORTS CITROËN company (TC) reduced to these two activities, will live its last hours before being definitively absorbed by GEFCO on 15th December 1978.
Au revoir "CITROËN coaches", as you used to be ... and thank you.
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Photo Captions:
1 - C6 G1 of the first route Paris-Versailles, which will not see the day
2 - Type 32B, Currus body for TC. The fixings are being prepared to receive the route signboard. 1935. These will be seen on the routes until 1948.
3 - C6G1 At the garage of Levallois in 1932
4- Paul Joseph and Charles Mannheimer
5- Driver-Conductor of the TC
6 - Bus station of La Villette and coach type UADI 1950 "The coach of revenge of diesel on petrol"
7- Coach type 45 - Body Currus "the vehicle with forward cabin"
8 - Magirus Deutz Navajo, a single example of production which leaves in 1973 in the colours of CITER. The prototype went to the Magirus plant: there was an order for two vehicles by a Swiss coach operator ... But the factory believed that the limits of the chassis had been reached, they did not continue production! This vehicle visited Paris with tourists, then it ended up with CFIT of Nantes in the depot of Saint-Brevin.
Archive sources of the Museum of Transports Verney:
Documentation Verney Group - Liaison Journals - Author of article: Michel Arlais
Documentation Berliet - Saviem - RVI – Information Reviews
We thank CITROËN HERITAGE & MICHEL ARLAIS (AMTUIR)
