The route

Starting at the northern terminus of Dompierre, the line has 31 kilometres to run before it reaches Abbeville. It first runs East along the valley adjacent to the river before turning South, crossing the road and starting a fierce climb up the side of the valley.

After a few kilometres it uses some of the few major engineering works remaining today, a large 'C' shaped curve in a cutting before emerging onto the plateaux. Today this land is used for a mixture of sugar beet and grain and 20th century agriculture has obliterated any traces of the route here.

The next station was at Wadicourt, which is still identifiable, followed by the long decent into Crecy. Today Crecy is a small town, with some light industry and again the station building is easily found at the eastern most end of the main road. There is even some metre gauge track embedded in the concrete!

From Crecy the line again turns south and west and enters the forest of Crecy, where there was the Foret du Crecy station. After another few kilometres the route emerges and reaches Forest l'Abbaye, where it split with one branch running due south to Abbeville whilst the other arm turns West again and heads for Noyelles.

Following the Noyelles branch, we are now on the coastal plain and arrive at Nouvion-en-Ponthieu, followed by Sailly-le-Sec, Sally-Bray and then cross the main SNCF line to arrive at Noyelles.

If we instead had taken the line to Abbeville, we would head due south, through Lamotte-Buleux, Canchy-Neuilly, Plessiel-Drucat, Drucat and then Abbeville Port du Bois, Port Saint Gilles and finally Abbeville Nord interchange with the SNCF.

From Noyelles, of course, the CFBS is still very much in existence and works throughout the year as a tourist railway.

The narrow gauge lines all started around the 1880's and continued operating, albeit intermittently, until 1965 after which only the CFBS was left working and the RBM soon started to vanish from the landscape.

Opening [and closing] dates of the five lines which made up the RBM.

•     Noyelles - Le Crotoy (opened 1 June 1887).
•     Noyelles - St. Valery sur Somme (opened 5 June 1858 [Standard gauge], 6 September 1887  [Dual gauge] ).
•     St. Valery sur Somme - Cayeux sur Mer (opened 6 September 1887).
•     Noyelles - Forest-l'Abbaye (opened 24 August 1892, closed 10 March 1947 [passengers] / 1 February 1951 [freight] ).
•     Abbeville - Dompierre-sur-Authie (opened 19 June 1892, closed 10 March 1947 [Abbeville - Forest-l'Abbaye and Crécy Estrées - Dompierre sur Authie, also to passengers between Crécy Estrées and Forest l'Abbaye] / 1 February 1951 [Crécy Estrées - Forest-l'Abbaye] ).