He was a regional engineer with the highways department at Altkirch, subsequently becoming director of railways for Alsace.

Adolphe Bazaine was then given responsibility for the construction of the railway line from Mulhouse to Thann; then, with Mr. Chaperone, he established the project of the section Strasburg Bâle.

He was then given the project of building the canal of the Sauldre from 1 January 1849, replacing Charles Augustus Machart, but in fact his activity principally consisted of prepare and carry out the liquidation of the Workshops.

Bazaine was in communication with the utopian socialists Charles Fourier and Victor Considérant (his fellow student polytechnicien of the graduate class of 1826), who after the failure of the revolutionary attempt of 13 June 1849, took refuge at his house while awaiting to be able to flee in Belgium.

Bazaine was the brother-in-law of the engineer and physicist Paul Émile Clapeyron, spouse of Mélanie Bazaine-Vasseur.