TRANSPORTS  DROUIN  FRERES

A major Brittany bus, coach and haulage operator of yesteryear




Claude Drouin started in 1912 with a lorry and later added his first proper coach in 1922.  Then the company was founded at Nantes in 1928 -  Drouin Frères (Drouin Brothers) - and the business served the Loire Valley and the west of France for many years.  The operations included both passengers and freight and their buses and lorries contributed to the economic life of the area.  This was a family company built up over the years with routes stretching from Nantes as far as Laval, Rennes, Vannes and Quiberon. Based at 307 rue de Rennes in Nantes, the August 1934 edition of the Indicateur Quillet listed these routes:

Nantes - Rennes
Nantes - Lorient
Nantes - Le Loroux - Bottereau
Nantes - Vallet
Nantes - Laval
Nantes - Le Croisic
Nantes - Vitre
Nantes - Chateau Gontier  -Sable-s-Sarthe
Chateaubriant - Le Croisic
Nantes - Chateaubriant (par Riaillé)
St Nazaire - Piriac
St Nazaire - La Roche-Bernard
Vannes - Quiberon
Nantes - St Sebastien
Nantes - Haute-Goulaine

A map of the Drouin routes in 1939, taken from the Indicateur Général de la Région Nantaise
map Drouin 1939cover Nantes timetable 1939


Later route information comes from a Drouin poster timetable from summer 1970, showing also the route letters allocated:

A   Nantes - Rennes
B   Nantes - Vannes
BA   Vannes - Quiberon
B1   Vannes - Lorient
B2   Vannes - Larmor-Baden
C   Nantes - Thouare - Le Loroux Bottereau
D   Nantes - Vallet - Mouzillon
F   Nantes - Saint Sebastien - Haute-Goulaine
F1   Nantes - Vertou Gare - Saint Sebastien
P   Nantes - Vertou - Chateau Thebaud
H   Nantes - St Nazaire  - Le Croisic
HA   St Nazaire - Piriac
HB   St Nazaire -  La Rocche-Bernard
HD  Guemene-Penfao - St Gildas des Bois
HM  La Baule - Asserac
G   Nantes - Chateaubriant - Laval
GA   Chateaubriant - Bain-de-Bretagne
GE   Chateaubriant - Abbaretz - Puceul - Nantes
L   Nantes - St Julien de Vouvantes - Chateaubriant
AGH  Rennes - Le Croisic
N  St Nazaire - Le Croisic
K   Nantes - Segre - Chateau-Gontier
J   Nantes - Chateaubriant - Vitré
O   Nantes - Rocheserviere
R   Redon - Blain - Nantes (par Plesse)
M  Nantes - Lege
S   Redon - Besle - Nantes
HC  Redon - St Nazaire - Le Croisic
G5   Redon - Guémené - Penfao - Chateaubriant
GH  Chateaubriant - Le Croisic

The private company traded as Drouin Freres until the late sixties, and then in 1968 a new public company was established, Compagnie Française des Transports Drouin.  This continued the Transports Drouin branding with a TD logo.  The bus and coach activities were put into a dedicated company in 1975: TTO (Transports et Tourisme de  l' Ouest).  As well as their interurban and country routes until 1984 they ran the Sainte-Nazaire urban buses; and there had also been urban operational involvement in Nantes and Rennes. The TTO operations passed to Cariane in 1989, trading as Cariane Atlantique, from depots in Nantes, Chateaubriant, La Baule, Rennes, Laval and Vannes.  Cariane was a subsidiary of SCETA, which was the road transport subsidiary of SNCF French Railways.  

The Rennes depot was sold to TAE (Transport Armor Express).  This had been another important family business, Autocars de Saint-Henis in Rennes, until becoming TAE in 1981.  A few years later (mid 1990s) TAE was acquired in part by the Cariane group, believed to be at the time that the Ille-et-Vilaine part of the TTO operation passed to TAE.  The TAE trading name was kept by Cariane, and a full take over came subsequently.

When Cariane merged with VIA-GTI funded Keolis a third Brittany company appeared in the group : les Courriers Bretons (Saint Malo). The three companies kept their individual names until 2007 or 2008, when Keolis decided to trade using its own name. So now we have :

Keolis Atlantique (ex Cariane Atlantique)
Keolis Armor (ex Transport Armor Express) including Transports Georges from Dinard
Keolis Emeraude (ex Courriers Bretons  -  in fact always part of the 'group' having been an SGTD company; SGTD became VIA, that became Keolis).

The family Drouin retained their extensive haulage and parcels interests until going into receivership in 1996 after six years of trading losses.  The freight operations then passed to Ziegler, the Belgian transport and warehousing group, which acquired 12 depots, 147 staff and the name of Transports Drouin.

From happier times Geoff Currie has provided some photographs from his visit to La Baule in 1968, when the Drouin buses were very much in business!


Drouin busesThree Drouin vehicles 1968
Drouin SaviemDrouin Saviem 1968
La Baule bus stationLa Baule bus station 1968
Drouin ticketA selection of Drouin tickets from the collection of Geoff Currie
Drouin tickets



=== with thanks to Gerard Delpeuch and John Carman for information about the later developments ===



We would be pleased to learn more about this operator if any French readers of this page have further information!

Si les lecteurs français de cette page pouvaient m’apporter des informations complémentaires à propos de cet autocariste, je leur en serais reconnaissant!


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