At its greatest, the system had at total length of 191 kilometres with its headquarters at Romorantin.  The system opened in 1901 and remained intact until 1951 when the first closures took place.

All traffic was steam hauled until the early 1930s, when Billard railcars were introduced to handle some of the passenger traffic. Steam locomotives were operated until the 1950s.

In 1981, the Centre region and SNCF agreed to rebuild the four Verney railcars, and built two new ones. At the same time the timetable was reorganised to give better connections with the SNCF.

The Blanc-Argent became part of TER in 1987. Freight traffic on the Blanc-Argent ended in 1989.

I visited the system on a dull, gloomy day in August 1984 when the system extended from Salbris to Buzançais.  At that time freight was still running, and the two new CFD railcars and the four rebuilt Verney railcars were newly into service.

During my visit I photographed not just the railcars and locomotives, but also pretty much everything I came across.  The whole place had a feeling of impending death, and I wanted to record what was there.

See the pictures of the Chemin du Fer Blanc-Argent.