Chemins de fer de l'Est

The Compagnie des chemins de fer de l' Est ( French Eastern Railway ) is a former French railway company.

The company was founded in 1845 under the name Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Strasbourg and won the concession for the railway Paris-Strasbourg line with branches from Epernay to Reims and Metz Frouard and on to the then Prussian border. Through acquisitions and other concessions, the company expanded rapidly. In 1853 it merged with the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Montereau à Troyes and changed its name to Compagnie des chemins de fer de l' Est.

1854 took over the Eastern Railway Compagnie de Strasbourg à Basel, in 1857 the operation of the Luxembourg Railways, 1858, the Railway Mulhouse -Thann and 1863 the power of the Ardennes track.

Beginning in 1870, the Eastern Railway operating a network of 2,838 kilometers in length, wherein the driven distances in Luxembourg are not included.

As a result of the Franco-German war in 1870, the company had 841 kilometers formerly ceded to the German Empire French route in Alsace -Lorraine and 237 km in Luxembourg and Belgium. Thus, they lost important connections with Switzerland Basel as well as Belgium and the Netherlands via Luxembourg. As compensation, the Eastern Railway received from the state a generous subsidy and a concession for additional lines. The assigned routes have been incorporated in Germany as a State Imperial Railways in Alsace- Lorraine.

By further railway buildings and acquisitions, the network of French East enlarged until the end of 1912 to a length of 5,027 kilometers.

Following the return of Alsace- Lorraine to France, 1919, the routes were there as Réseau ferroviaire d' Alsace-Lorraine (AL ) as the State Railways own and found their way not back to Eastern Railway. Even after the takeover of the network of lines in Alsace -Lorraine by France are some places to this day signals according to German design, and the trains run with right operation, contrary to the usual in France in the web links operation.

On January 1, 1938, the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l' Est, together with the Réseau Ferroviaire d' Alsace-Lorraine to the newly formed state railway SNCF.