The Railway Junction
Western Railways Lines Company (state owned)
In 1843 the Paris-Rouen railway line was created by the Western Railways Company, belonging to the network of general interest built by English companies, and extended to Le Havre in 1847.
The Rouen-Dieppe section appeared in 1848 but the Clères station was ‘forgotten’
despite the commitments from the railway company. It was created after several requests and a petition to the Emperor Napoleon the Third on February 5th 1853 and finally built on land given by the Count of Béarn and opened in 1855. The Motteville - St -Valéry-en Caux section was constructed in 1848.
In 1876 a branch line to Motteville, still visible today, and another one to Buchy enabled the Clérois (people from Clères) to get to Amiens and Le Havre. The inconvenience here was that the Amiens and Le Havre locomotives had to be uncoupled from the train in Clères station to change direction. However, as from 1917 and thanks to Croatian prisoners a line was built between La Houssaye-Béranger and Etampuis so that the Amiens-Le Havre trains could avoid going through Clères.
The passenger service was ended in 1938 and the freight service in in the sixties.
The Normandy Railway Lines Company : The Tortillard
A metre-guage line (where the rails are one metre distant instead of 1,445 metres) from Ouville-la-Rivière to Motteville was opened on March 16th 1912 and the Gueures-Clères line opened on April 30th 1913. These two lines were unprofitable and were closed to travellers in 1939 to be replaced by bus services. Freight transport continued until they were ended in 1947.
Years 2000
Clères is 20 minutes from Rouen and 45 minutes from Dieppe. During the week 9 trains serve Clères and 5 on Sundays.
A Strange Project
In January 1909 a project for a line from Clères to Rouen following the valley of the Cailly was submitted with two choices
Firstly, departure from Clères centre using the Montville road, which would thus have been narrowed. The station would have taken the place of the covered market and the maneuvering area would have run alongside the Clères park, where the car-park now exists. Louis Duthil, the mayor of Clères,, and the town council opposed this choice in order to protect the town centre.
Secondly, departure from Clères station along the hillside to Le Tôt and from there along the Montville road. Clères was less hostile to this choice and Anceameville and Montville agreed to it.
Finally neither choice materialised.