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PARIS
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Paris, the capital of France (9 million inhabitants in Greater Paris), is one of Europe's metro flagships. After London (1863), Glasgow and Budapest (both 1896) this is the continent's fourth oldest metro system and probably the densest.
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The first line (ligne 1) was opened exactly in 1900 (see map above) as part of a planned six line network. At the end of 2003 Paris has 14 Métro lines and 2 branches (see full map here) that are operated as separate lines. The total length of the network is 212.5 km (168.5 km within Paris):
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16.5 km - 25 stations; almost entirely underground except for Bastille station and the Seine bridge between Pont de Neuilly and Esplanade de la Défense. Line 1 will be converted to driverless operation in the near future. 19/07/1900: Porte de Vincennes - Port Maillot (8 stations of 18, the rest were opened between 06/08/1900 and 01/09/1900); 03/1934: - Château de Vincennes; 04/1937: Port Maillot (new station) - Pont de Neuilly; 04/1992: - Grande Arche de La Défense
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(northern ring line, until 14/10/1907 called ligne 2 Nord) (12 km): 13/12/1900: Porte Dauphine – Charles de Gaulle Etoile; 10/1902: Charles de Gaulle Etoile – Anvers; 31/01/1903: Anvers – Rue de Bagnolet (since 1970 Alexandre Dumas); 02/04/1903: Rue de Bagnolet (Alexandre Dumas) – Nation |
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(12 km): 10/10/1904: Père Lachaise - Villiers; 01/1905 - Gambetta; 05/1910: - Péreire; 02/1911: - Pte. Champerret; 09/1937: - Pont de Levallois/Bécon; 02/04/1971: - Gallieni |
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(1.3 km): 27/11/1921: Gambetta - Porte de Lilas (part of line 3, since 1971 separate) |
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(10.5 km): 21/04/1908: Porte de Clignancourt – Châtelet; 10/1909: Porte d'Orleans – Raspail; 09/01/1910 Châtelet - Raspail (station Les Halles reconstructed and reopened 03/10/1977 with new RER station). The first step of the southern extension from Porte d'Orléans to Mairie de Montrouge (0.8km, 1 station) is scheduled to be finished by 2010. Later two more stations, Verdun-Sud and Bagneux will complete the 2.7km extension. |
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(14.5 km): 02/06/1906: Place d'Italie – Gare d’Orléans (now Gare d’Austerlitz); 07/1906: - Place Mazas (now Quai de la Rapée); 12/1906: - Lancry (now Jacques Bonsergent); 15/11/1907 - Gare du Nord; 10/1942: - Eglise de Pantin; 25/04/1985: - Bobigny/Pablo Picasso |
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(southern ring line) (13.5 km), until 14/10/1907 called ligne 2 Sud; then until 1942 Étoile - Pl. d'Italie section was a part of line 5; Pl. d’Italie – Nation was a ligne 6: 02/10/1900: Étoile - Trocadéro; 11/1903: - Passy; 04/1906: - Pl. d'Italie; 03/1909: - Nation At Étoile - Charles de Gaulle trains reverse in a loop, there is also such a loop at Nation which is only used during rush hours. |
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(22.5 km) 05/11/1910: Porte de la Villette – Opéra; 07/1916: - Palais Royal; 04/1926: - Pont-Marie; 02/1930: (Odéon (L10) -) Place Monge – Pl. d’Italie; 03/1930: - Pte de Choisy; 06/1930: - Pont Sully (now Sully Morland); 26/04/1931: Pont Sully (now Sully Morland) - Place Monge - Porte d'Ivry; 01/05/1945 - Mairie d'Ivry;10/1979 - Fort d'Aubervilliers; 12/1982: Maison Blanche - Le Kremlin-Bicêtre; 02/1985 - Villejuif-Louis Aragon; 06/05/1987 - La Courneuve
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(3 km): 18/01/1911: Pré-St.Gervais - Louis Blanc (line 7 branch, separate line since 1967) |
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(22 km):
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(20 km): 08/11/1922: Exelmans - Trocadéro; 05/1923: - Saint-Augustin; 06/1923: - Chaussée d'Antin; 09/1923: Exelmans – Porte de Saint Cloud; 06/1928: Chaussée d'Antin - Richelieu-Drouot; 12/1933 - Pte. de Montreuil; 02/1934 - Pont de Sèvres; 10/1937 - Mairie de Montreuil
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(12 km): 13/07/1913: La Motte Picquet Grenelle – Beaugrenelle (now Charles Michels) (as a branch of Ligne 8); 09/1913: - Porte d'Auteuil; 12/1923 (Invalides - Duroc) - Croix Rouge (closed after WWII); 1925: - Mabillon; 02/1926: - Odéon; 02/1930: - Maubert Mutualité (- Pl. d’Italie, after Place de Monge using the tracks of today's Ligne 7); 04/193: Maubert Mutualité - Jussieu; 07/1937: La Motte Picquet Grenelle - Duroc; 07/1939 - Gare d'Austerlitz; 10/1980: - Boulogne Jean Jaurès; 02/10/1981: - Boulogne Pont de St.Cloud |
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(6.5 km): 28/04/1935: Châtelet – Pte de Lilas; 17/02/1937: Mairie de Lilas.
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(14 km): 05/11/1910:
Porte de Versailles – Notre Dame de Lorette; 04/1911: - Pigalle;
10/1912: Jules-Joffrin; 08/1916: - Porte de la Chapelle;
24/03/1934 - Mairie d'Issy |
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(21 km): 26/02/1911: St.Lazare - Porte de St.Ouen; 01/1912: La Fourche - Porte de Clichy; 12/1923 Invalides - Duroc (formerly a part of a line 10; then line 14); 01/1937: Montparnasse-Bienvenüe - Pte. de Vanves; 7/1937: Montparnasse-Bienvenüe - Duroc; 06/1952 - Carrefour Pleyel; 06/1973: Miromesnil; 02/1975: Champs-Elysées Clémanceau; 05/1976 - St. Denis-Basilique; 11/1976: - Invalides (connection with ex-line 14) and - Châtillon-Montrouge; 05/1980 Gabriel Péri Asnières-Gennevilliers; 25/05/1998 - St.Denis Université. At Liège platforms are not opposite each other at La Fourche the trains coming from St.Denis stop on a lower level. Construction work started in February 2005 on line 13 from Asnières-Gennevilliers Gabriel Péri to Asnières-Genevilliers III (Le Luth), with an intermediate station at Asnières-Genevilliers II (name still unknown): 1.9 km, scheduled opening mid-2008. The line should later be extended to Port de Gennevilliers.
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(8 km) Finally in the 1990's Paris started to build a new metro line, the so-called METEOR (Métro Est Ouest Rapide) although from the day of inauguration (15/Oct/1998) it is called ligne 14. This line is meant to alleviate ligne 1 and RER ligne A in the central area and starts at Maison Blanche in the south, then runs parallel to ligne 1 and A between Gare de Lyon and Châtelet-les Halles and finally turns north to St. Lazare from where it will be connected to the western branch (Gabriel Péri) of ligne 13. After some years of delay the first stretch from Bibliothèque F. Mitterrand (planned as Tolbiac-Masséna) to Madeleine was finally opened in October 1998. In summer 1998 construction work for the second section to St. Lazare started, which was finished in Dec. 2003. 15/10/1998:
Madeleine - Bibliothèque François Mitterrand From autumn 2000 a southern extension is underway to Olympiades scheduled to be completed by late 2007. Later the line is planned to be extended to Maison Blanche, M7, with a possible connection to the Villejuif branch of line 7; projects of further extension to Orly Airport seem to be dropped, a tram line may be built instead) Ligne 14 could be later extended north to Place de Clichy and La Fourche and connected to the north-western branch of ligne 13 extended to to Asnières-Gennevilliers and Port de Genevilliers or to the north-eastern branch to Saint-Denis.
Photos © Jörg Kuntz (1), Wieger van der Slikke (2) and Thomas Schunk (3,4) |
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After World War II actually only metro extensions outside the city limits were built (apart from St.Lazare - Invalides). In the 70's and 80's special emphasis was put on the RER System (Regional Express Network) which currently consists of five lines (A, B, C, D, E) crossing the city underground (line C only partly) and connecting formerly existing suburban rail lines. This network is operated jointly by RATP (Métro and buses) and SNCF (French National Railways). The last of these lines, which was formerly referred to as EOLE, now ligne E, opened in July 1999 between St. Lazare and Magenta. On 3 Dec 2000, a new station was opened on Line C at Bibliothèque François Mitterrand to provide transfer to Line 14. This new station replaces the former Masséna station.
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| Books |
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Arnold Delaney: PARIS BY METRO. An Underground History. - 2006, 100 p., Interlink Publishing Group, ISBN 1566566460 - explains origin of all station names with several colour photos Larry Yust: METRO. - Oct. 2004. 136 p., Gingko Press, ISBN: 1584231742 Spectacular photos of Paris metro stations F. Descouturelle, A. Mignard, M. Rodriguez: Le Métropolitain d'Hector Guimard . - Oct. 2003, 152 p., Somogy, ISBN 2850566691 Jean-Pierre Rigouard: Le Métro de Paris. Tome 2: Les lignes complémentaires (Lignes 7 - 13). - Feb. 2003, 128 pages, Alan Sutton; Collection : memoire en images, ISBN 2842538471 (Also available here) Jean-Pierre Rigouard: Le Métro de Paris. Tome 1: Les premières lignes.- 2002, 128 pages, Alan Sutton ISBN 2842537777 (Also available here) Gaston Jacobs: Le métro de Paris. Un siècle de matériel roulant. - 2001, 223p. La Vie du rail , ISBN 2902808976 Gérard Rolland: Stations de métro Le dictionnaire des 366 stations. - Christine Bonneton Éditeur, Paris, 2003 (new edition). - Explains origin of station names. Jean-Paul Carminati: Dictionnaire imaginaire des stations de métro Clive Lamming: Paris Ferroviaire. - 2002, Parigramme, ISBN 2840962926 Clive Lamming: Paris Tram. - 2003, Parigramme, ISBN 2840961962 Jean Orselli: Les nouveaux tramways: Comment ne pas rater son tram. - 2004, Paradigme, Collection: Transports et communication, 268 p., ISBN 2868782388 Christoph Groneck: Neue Straßenbahnen in Frankreich. - 2003, 167p., Ek-Verlag, ISBN 388255844X Plotkin, Susan L.: The Paris Metro - A Ticket to French History. - ISBN 0738852473, April 2001 (US orders) Roland,
Gérard: PARIS
METRO RETRO
- C.
Bonneton, 2001. ISBN 2862532797 Hardy, Brian: PARIS METRO HANDBOOK. - Capital Transport, new 1999 edition. Lamming, Clive: MÉTRO INSOLITE. - Parigramme, Paris, 176 p., many photos (March 2001). ISBN 2840961903 Various:
Le
kiosque des noctambules, une oeuvre de Jean Michel Othoniel.
Chansons Metropolitains. (CD) - 48 songs from 1900-2000 related with the Métro (leaflet included). Feb. 2001 Jean Tricoire: Un Siècle de Métro en 14 Lignes - Best book on Paris Metro Jean Tricoire: Le métro de Paris: 1899-1911 : images de la construction Game/Michaud: Métro histoires illustrees des stations Je travaillais dans le métro... Satoshi Kako: Les travaux du métro Sheila Hallsted-Baumert, a.o.: Métro-cité : le chemin de fer métropolitain à la conquête de Paris, 1871-1945 Jean-Claude Demory: Le métro de chez nous Le métro a cent ans - agenda 2000 Berton, Claude and Alexandre Ossadzow: FULGENCE BIENVENÜE et la construction du Métropolitain de Paris. - Presses de l'école nationale des Ponts et chaussées, Paris, 1998. Bruno Latour: ARAMIS ou l'amour des techniques. - La Decouverte (Textes a l App); ISBN 2707121207. Explains a former MATRA project of a small automatic metro tested in Paris in the 1980's. Michael Brein's GUIDE TO PARIS BY THE METRO |
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These photos courtesy of © Aleksander Pawlak |
| Practical Info |
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- OPERATION 5:30 - 1:00 every few minutes - FARES given here are for zones 1 and 2 which covers the entire metro network (2006 in Euro): Single ticket - 1.40 (no free transfer between bus and métro) 10 trips - 10.70 (no free transfer between bus and métro) Mobilis (Day Ticket) - 5.40 Carte Orange (Season ticket) weekly - 15.70, monthly 51.50 All tickets are valid on city buses, métro and RER within these zones. A tourist pass Paris Visite is available for 3, 5 or 8 zones and includes special services and discounts for some attractions.
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Paris Metro Extension Projects STP - Syndicat des Transports Parisiens - contains info on new metro extensions AMATUIR.org (Association pour le Musée des Transports Urbains, Interurbains et Ruraux) incl. large metrpo history section Paris Metro Pages by Joep van de Sanden A Railfan's Guide to the Paris Métro by David Pierman Paris Pages: Métro / RER /Bus in English Le Métro Parisien by Song Phanekham A nice story on the Paris Metro
Closed Metro stations in Paris Paris Metro Pictures on Railfan Europe MétroPole, le site des transports publics de l'agglomération parisienne by Jean-François Dancre Metrorama Photos panoramiques du métro de Paris PlanètePixel - incl. great panoramic metro station photos Navily - by Jean-Christophe Pagès UrbanRail.Net - full Paris Métro map (1770 x 1700 pixels, 116 K) All Guimard station entrances at Paris Inconnu Collection of historic Paris Metro Maps by Peter B. Lloyd This picture © Stefan Marquis/MTP Network |
See the complete UrbanRail.Net Paris Métro Map!
Thanks to Alex Riabov, Jean Liou and Jordi Serradell!
2004 © UrbanRail.Net by Robert Schwandl.
John
Rowland's