The former SNCF depot in Montluçon: a strong marker of the city’s rail and industrial identity.

• The former SNCF depot in Montluçon, where part of the rotunda, the revolving bridge and the service buildings adjoining it remain, is emblematic of the industrial and railway history of Montluçon.
• At the peak of its activity, it housed more than 150 railcars and steam locomotives, then diesel, employing up to 500 railwaymen, before gradually losing its importance and ceasing all activity in the 2000s.
• The rotunda and the swing bridge have been included in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments since 2011.
• Still owned by the SNCF which granted its management to the city of Montluçon, the city - this one entrusted its conservation and animation to the Amicale des Anciens et Amis de la Traction à Vapeur de Montluçon (AAATV), association law of 1901 created in 2009.
• The AAATV keeps and restores cars withdrawn by the SNCF from the commercial service, some of which remain fit to circulate and are used for the organization, always by the AAATV itself - tourism trips, the financial results of which are fully reinvested in the maintenance and restoration of the site and the materials kept there.
• Is also being restored a "train of emergency", whose function was, until the 70s, to restore the circulation on the sites of railway accidents: lifting of the derailed materials, restoration of the infrastructure...
• The centrepiece is the "Cockerill" crane, a spectacular 85-ton machine that carried out the lifting operations.
• The restoration of this complex, entrusted to the AAATV by the "Cité du Train", National Railway Museum located in Mulhouse, is due to its cost entirely financed by donations from individuals or corporate and institutional patronage, either directly or via the Heritage Foundation. These donations are non-taxable, the AAATV being in this respect recognized association of general interest.
• Every year in June, several steam trains of friendly associations (from Limoges, Orléans, Clermont - Ferrand) converge towards the depot, on the occasion of the "Festirail", a big party during which the site of the depot is open to the public free of charge and hosts railway-themed stands, animations, miniature networks on various scales, including some with steam.
• Collections of various railway objects and documents are being built for the creation of a museum space.
• The AAATV adheres, at the national level to the National Union of Tourist Railway Operators; at the departmental level to "Patrimoine Bourbonnais Patrimoine d'Avenir", at the regional level to "Patrimoine Aurhalpin".
• In May 2019, this last association labellised the depot as well as the metal viaducts of the SNCF line Montluçon - Gannat, as "Ensemble Industriel Remarquable" of the Auvergne - Rhône Alpes region.
• All facilities and buildings will be accessible during JPOs. Several AAATV members will be available to comment on the tours, including the museum space. Demonstrations of the operation of the Cockerill crane will be carried out.