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The Decauville family from Normandy, settles South of Paris in the seventeenth century. Armand-Louis-Victor began cultivating sugar beets in 1850. Later he built a distillery and a refinery producing alcohol. In 1853, wishing to expand its operations, Armand Decauville created workshops in Petit-Bourg where he devoted himself to the construction of steam engines for plowing. and in 1864 he handed day-to day control to Paul Decauville, his eldest son who was then 18-years old. 
Seven years later, Armand Decauville died. During the same period, the small family property grew to over 700 hectares. Anxious to facilitate the work on his ever growing property, Decauville, invented a system of modular, prefabricated track sections that could be laid on easily prepared ground. These track sections include both the rails and corrugated iron cross ties. Originally developed in 400 mm gauge his firm came to offer two standard gauges 500 mm and 600 mm. Locomotive power could be provided by very light engines or draft animals.
The Decauville System was used primarily for temporary mining, quarrying, and harvesting applications and for portable military supply railways, such as those that supported the front lines in Europe. During WWI the French and British military built thousands of miles of 600 mm trench railway track. The system was also used by the Russian military on the Eastern front and a track was used in the tunnels at the Rock of Gibraltar. The system continued to be used for decades in the future. As part of a financial restructuring in 1893, Louis Paul Waldemar Ravenez gained control of the company and cast about for new markets. These included electrical equipment, bicycles, automobiles for Serpollet and frames for De Dion.
