[HN Gopher] Ghost Stations of the Paris Metro
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Ghost Stations of the Paris Metro
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 222 points
Date : 2021-05-29 10:57 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.urbextour.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.urbextour.com)
| major505 wrote:
| So, this lights are maintained even if the stations are
| abandoned?
| amelius wrote:
| I suppose most of these photos used a long exposure, and/or a
| rushing-by subway for "lighting". There seem to be some small
| lights for workers/emergency situations, but nothing compared
| to the lighting of an operational subway station.
| kweks wrote:
| It depends on the system. Paris metro tunnels are constantly
| lit. It's less than station lighting, but more than enough
| that you don't need a lamp with you.
|
| It's definitely an oddity, most systems are unlit (Barcelona
| has entrances lit then nothing, Ukraine, Russia, etc all
| unlit).
|
| Interestingly, unlit tunnels bring the advantage of if you're
| seen, the lights are turned on, giving you a clear warning
| sign to leave.
|
| In the Paris system, you need to actively count the delay
| between trains to ensure traffic isn't cut. We had one or two
| encounters where we realised that it had been 4 minutes
| between trains when they we running on 2 minute intervals..
| papertokyo wrote:
| What's the scenario there? They lengthen the headway on the
| whole line until they catch you or they actually cancel
| some trains? Why? I'm curious what the operational response
| is from their side.
| kweks wrote:
| Typically they will announce to the PCC (central control)
| that they sighted people in the tunnels. The next train
| that comes through the sector will roll at walking speed.
| If you haven't cleared out by that time and get seen,
| they stop all traffic on the line, and send in rail
| police from each side of the tunnel to find you.
| closeparen wrote:
| Two minute intervals! My kingdom for a commute on two
| minute intervals. The very busiest lines get down to
| perhaps 6 trains an hour on peak, 3 normally.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Most of the world's busiest systems have at least a line
| or several which approaches 90 second intervals at peak
| hours. Moscow, Paris, London, even NYC (and I would have
| to assume many Asian systems I'm not as familiar with as
| well). 30-40 trains an hour is the gold standard, but
| obviously only makes sense if there is enough ridership.
| closeparen wrote:
| Oh, this is on a line that's at more than triple design
| capacity. The limitation is signals.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| These are the some of the cleanest abandoned subway stations I
| have ever seen. Except for the 'street art', where is the
| deterioration?
| kweks wrote:
| This may be of interest:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_station_(IRT_Lexin...
|
| In the Paris system, the majority of the mentioned stations
| still have traffic running through them. The architecture is
| maintained.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| They are still part of the system. And to get there entail a
| scary walk in the dark that most people won't take.
|
| That's it.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Being part of the system, several of them are probably still
| available for use as an emergency exit (terrorist attacks
| etc).
| euroderf wrote:
| The maps are great - where do they come from ?
| Symbiote wrote:
| From http://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-paris/
| kweks wrote:
| From 2008 to 2012 a friend and I spent at least 2 - 3 times per
| week obsessively 'running track' in the Paris metro.
|
| It's definitely one of the most interesting systems in the world,
| with a lot of hidden secrets. Despite years of systematic
| exploration, and having walked the length of the entire system,
| we were still finding artefacts.
|
| For the interested, in my opinion the most complete writeups of
| the system was written by my exploring partner.
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20130513204844/http://www.sleepyc...
| klohto wrote:
| Good read, thanks for the link! What was the most weird thing
| you encountered?
| kweks wrote:
| One of the weirdest was shooting photos when a track side
| door opened, a man in a nice suit walked up to us, didn't say
| a word, smiled and shook our hands, each in turn, in total
| silence. He then revealed himself to be the chief engineer of
| the line 1, was happy to let us hang out and watch the trains
| with him, and said in parting.. oh, I really should get
| around to fixing that ingress point of yours..
|
| Or a worker we bumped into who said he knew we weren't
| painters because we didn't throw rocks at him, and thanked us
| kindly.
|
| The most surprisingly was stumbling upon a 1930s train, the
| Sprague Thompson in mint condition, hiding in a section of
| metro that we'd overlooked for years...
| alcover wrote:
| > stumbling upon a 1930s train
|
| Truly fantastic. Did you enter it ? I would die for such
| moments if I was an urbexplorer.
| kweks wrote:
| Multiple times, it stayed 'unknown' and pristine for a
| long time
|
| http://ninjito.com/_2012-04-07
|
| When we turned the corner and saw it, I guess we nearly
| passed out, we'd been looking for it for years :)
| qwertox wrote:
| Thanks for the link. I can't believe that it hasn't been
| touched for a long time, it's almost way to clean.
|
| And the site itself, wow.
|
| http://ninjito.com/2020-02-05-Baikonour
| alcover wrote:
| Damn... Please don't tell me it got graffited.
|
| Thinking of the million souls, early morning workers and
| late night lovers this venerable workhorse has carried is
| vertiginous.
| [deleted]
| LaputanMachine wrote:
| I like how some of the photos show the same place years apart.
|
| These two images [1][2] show the same junction near St Martin
| station.
|
| Note the patch in the ceiling in these two pictures: [3][4]
|
| The pink graffito on the back wall in this [5] picture can
| still be seen years later if you zoom into this [6] picture.
|
| A red graffito can be seen on the back wall here [7] (very
| small) and here [8].
|
| [1]http://web.archive.org/web/20130513204844im_/http://sleepyci
| ... [2]https://www.urbextour.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/09/21.jpg [3]http://web.archive.org/web/20
| 130513204844im_/http://sleepyci...
| [4]https://www.urbextour.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/8-1.jpg
| [5]http://web.archive.org/web/20130513204844im_/http://sleepyci
| ... [6]https://www.urbextour.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/09/58.jpg [7]http://web.archive.org/web/20
| 130513204844im_/http://sleepyci...
| [8]https://www.urbextour.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/59.jpg
| kweks wrote:
| Even looking back at those photos today takes me on a huge
| nostalgia trip. The article very accurately outlines our
| trepidation of first plunges into the system, and our
| original photos shot on film, and finally progressing to a
| more polished style as we got more experience.
|
| There are very interesting stories in the graffiti,
| representing generations of visits, and 'following' certain
| people, noticing where they'd been and not been.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Excellent writeup, thank you!
|
| Does anyone know if the system is still as accessible as it was
| in 2012? I know that at least in northern France and Belgium
| this type of exploration has become a lot more difficult due to
| more cameras and more police/security awareness.
| qwertox wrote:
| For those who don't want to read the entire article, here's one
| part which you shouldn't skip: F3 the page for "getting caught
| by security and police".
| Zenst wrote:
| I find it facinating that in a growing population that large
| places like Paris have stations that became disused. But that
| seems to be the case upon many large underground networks that
| have been around long enough and in London the list is not short:
| https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/...
|
| Though that does not include stations part built and then never
| completed of which there are a fair few for London, unsure about
| Paris but I would imagine be some instances of part built or
| intended stations that never got finished. Indeed I had a look at
| seems at least two got built and never saw use -
| https://www.renfe-sncf.com/rw-en/blog/destinations/paris/vis...
| rst wrote:
| New York also has a few abandoned stations, most often (as in a
| lot of these Parisian stations) because they were so close to
| other stations that there wasn't much point in operating both
| -- doubly so after platforms on the stations still in use were
| lengthened to accommodate longer trains. (There are also a
| bunch of former connections to elevated lines that no longer
| exist.)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_closed_New_York_City_S...
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I also read once that it made sense to build stations that
| weren't yet required for the system because they were already
| close by digging the tunnels for other stations and they were
| doing some future capacity planning that ended up getting
| abandoned. The station near the Broadway G stop comes to
| mind, which you can access from the north side of the
| southbound G platform not too far up the tunnel. A while back
| some artists did an (illegal) show in it.
| rst wrote:
| There are a bunch of partially completed stations (or
| expansion provisions for future stations) which were
| intended for the "IND Second System" -- a massive set of
| projects that got killed off by the Great Depression.
|
| (The beginning of one of those lines actually got built and
| put into service, in the form of a one-station spur line
| branching off Hoyt-Schermerhorn in Brooklyn, and going to
| Court Street, where the line now stops. It was originally
| intended to continue into Manhattan and become the Second
| Avenue Line. Instead, it was operated for a time as a
| shuttle, then discontinued. Court St. Station is now the
| main site of the Transit Museum, which may reopen one of
| these days. There's now a rump Second Avenue Line recently
| put into service on the Upper East Side -- three stops of
| it -- but construction of the rest isn't fully funded, it's
| not planned to reach lower Manhattan for a few more
| decades, and there are no active plans to continue it into
| Brooklyn.)
| elygre wrote:
| Somewhat unrelated, under the Bank of Norway head office in
| Oslo, there is a piece of tunnel that was never used. There
| were two alternative routes being considered for a tunnel
| under Oslo, and when they built a new bank over one of the
| routes, they built the tunnel just in case.
|
| In the end, the other route was selected. The tunnel was
| initially used as a firing range for the national bank
| guards, and later transformed to a parking garage.
| kweks wrote:
| The Renfe stations are still there, but rather uninteresting -
| empty concrete cut and cover affairs. The Barcelona metro does
| have a few abandoned stations. They also have the mosos police,
| which wage violent war against graffers, making 'innocent
| exploration' a high stakes game.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| Retired Parisian graffiti writer, here.
|
| The parent article does a good job at explaining the whys and
| hows.
|
| For the stations that where actually open at some point, it was
| mainly a matter of optimization: new hubs being built,
| profitability, etc. The end of WWII has been the turning point
| for most them.
|
| Porte des Lilas was a prototype station repurposed for shooting
| movies in a controlled environment.
|
| Haxo was part of a failed project to connect two lines. It was
| never officially opened so we, locals, don't really consider it
| as a station.
|
| The buff between Place d'Italie and Corvisart has never been a
| station. It's more of a curiosity than anything.
|
| Not mentioned in the article are the former end-station of line
| 5 at Gare du Nord, now a training ground for metro drivers,
| Arsenal on line 5, Porte Maillot on line 1, and Molitor, which
| was never even connected to the surface.
|
| I am not sure how popular the ghost stations of the metro, the
| prohibited sections of the catacombs, and the "petite ceinture"
| are with today's teens but they made Paris a gigantic
| interconnected playground back in the 80s/90s.
| Zenst wrote:
| Yes for London the WW2 period sure did change the landscape
| in many ways and I recall being supprised that it wasn't
| until 2015 that London's population had finally caught up
| with level it had in 1939. That alone really did highlight
| how some things can be impacting far wider than we
| appreciate.
| kweks wrote:
| I was always curious: the Sprague/s were left virgin for so
| many years. Was it because they hadn't been discovered by
| writers, or because they were considered untouchable for
| reasons of historical importance. Obviously the scene has all
| types, and both scenarios seem as unlikely as each other..
| can you elaborate ?
|
| Edit: "Sprague" or Sprague Thompson is rolling stock dating
| back to 1908. There are one or two hidden very well in the
| system, with one still in mint, serviceable condition.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| There are still quite a few Sprague cars preserved and
| maintained by various entities, some of them are even
| inserted in the traffic for special occasions like "Les
| journees du Patrimoine" during which the RATP ans other
| organisations show off a lot of very interesting and
| usually hidden stuff.
|
| That particular train of Spragues, the one that is covered
| with paint, has been stored in many places over the years,
| without a clear intent as to its future, like the BOA
| prototype. The first time I saw it was in the Vaugirard
| yard, which wasn't exactly a walk-in, so that made it a
| hard target compared to the regular trains. When they moved
| it in the connexion between lines 7 and 10 it became a much
| easier target and a go-to place for just about everyone.
|
| I'm afraid the RATP doesn't care much about that specific
| train.
|
| As for types, yes, we have all of them. Very few of us care
| about historical importance but it might actually be more
| of an attractor than a detractor for those who do.
| kweks wrote:
| I was referring specifically to the Sprague that was used
| in the Journee de la Patrimoine (which was sadly banned
| post 2010 I believe). It was well hidden, but then got
| trashed a few times with 'low effort' painters (throwing
| of paint over it, or quick chrome throwups as opposed to
| decent panels)
|
| Couldn't understand if this specific one was "spared" for
| so long because it was well hidden, or because most
| painters considered it "too nice" to paint (or pointless,
| as it was rarely in service..)
|
| The other ones (Monceau, etc) were obviously well and
| truly rinsed.
|
| There's a few nice examples of preserved rolling stock in
| the RATP's "secret warehouse", but they only kept the
| head and trashed the wagons.
|
| Vaugirard was definitely a nice yard, hard until we found
| a nicely hidden trapdoor-in-a-wall behind a 03..
| johncoltrane wrote:
| That specific one was spared because it was well hidden,
| as soon as it became an easier target it had to be
| painted. Spragues, ghost stations, historical monuments,
| natural landmarks, Russian space shuttles... nothing is
| "too nice".
|
| Vaugirard was more of a "monte-en-l'air" business for
| some of us ;-).
| kweks wrote:
| Oh man, the piece on the Buran is simply horrible. We
| managed to slip in just before COVID lockdown, somewhat
| lucky to have seen it before it got rinsed..
|
| And sure, les ateliers seemed to be affairs of bras-
| honneur ..
| muddiestwaters wrote:
| Retired train writer from berlin here, I'd love to hear more
| stories from you...
| johncoltrane wrote:
| Our stories are probably very similar ;-).
|
| You know... scouting, trespassing, chasing something or
| someone, being chased, the sounds, the smells, the "tick,
| tick, tick" dogs make while stamping on floor of a metro
| car, etc. There are specifics, of course, but the baseline
| is the same everywhere I have been.
| kweks wrote:
| Every metro has its own smell, I assume from the brake
| dust.
|
| Likewise the quiet moments between action when you're
| tucked into side tunnels, feeling the breeze and
| listening to distant trains rumbling by..
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Why would you chase someone, as a train painter?
|
| Turf fights?
| kweks wrote:
| Likewise from you.. our first jaunt in the Berlin metro led
| us to a train laid up near the Opera junction with cops and
| dogs waiting inside for us to paint, and were thoroughly
| confused when we didn't..
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > petite ceinture
|
| As of last year, it was straight-forward to transition
| between the official park and the rest of the line on the
| north side of the park. Might need a shovel at the south
| side, but then you're quickly on active RATP property, with
| better access points across a few crossovers. Also a
| formalized access point somewhere near Montreuil where some
| old furniture was placed in just the right spot from street
| level.
|
| Good place for berries and figs at the right time.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| I remember exploring the petit ceinture, and from there the
| catacomb. It was in the late 2000 in Paris.
|
| The catacomb came as a surprise, I knew it was there. I was
| not expecting to find a entrance to it randomly.
|
| ( you might know the place, where the ceinture collide with a
| easy catacombe entrance under a tunnel, in the XIIIeme )
|
| I had some much fun finding old map. Mapping it myself ...
| then realizing that a LOT of people where going there as
| well.
|
| As a ex member of the rave / free party movement it's was
| really close in spirit.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| Yes, I think I know the place. I had a fun adventure there,
| once, that taught me the importance of checking the
| batteries _before_ crawling in.
|
| There was another one in the XVeme that I used to visit bi-
| monthly.
|
| I wasn't much of a "cataphile" myself, but spending some
| times down there was a very common occupation in the
| 80s/90s. You could meet all kinds of people, down there.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The Wikipedia list says why each London Underground station was
| closed.
|
| Several are now only for suburban trains. Others were closed
| when replacing lifts with escalators meant entrances had to be
| moved, and were now too close to the next station.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_and_unopened_Lo...
|
| See also: http://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-tram-london/ ,
| which marks the closed stations -- you can usually see how
| close they are to other stations.
| fmajid wrote:
| Paris Metro stations are much closer together than London ones,
| and in some cases it makes no sense to keep open a low-traffic
| station that's just 100m from another, due to the cost of
| staffing them and the delay of a stop there to the entire line.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| I remember walking between two stops of the same line within
| Chatelet-Les Halles (presumably current line 4), but maybe
| such a conglomerate is unusual even for Paris.
| johncoltrane wrote:
| The average distance is somewhere in the 500m-700m range so
| taking the metro might not be necessary if your destination
| is one or two stops away.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| This is me pressing page down on the whole article so it loads
| the images before I try to read the article.
| asicsp wrote:
| Related [0]: "Ghost subway station in Paris where films come to
| life"
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27287938
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| You know what? I'm sometimes wondering why I can't see any
| picture of something I've experienced while I traveled by train
| from Bonn, Germany to Madrid, Spain to visit my best buddy, who
| moved away to there with his parents. For my summer holidays,
| about 1980 or so. Alone. For two days on the trains! Yay!
|
| What I will never forget was while I had to take the Metro in
| Paris to switch from one terminal station to another, the Metro
| rode trough some subterran depot/switching yard, which was a
| large rectangular hall, at least several 100 meters long, almost
| 100 wide, and 10s of meters high. Dark. Except for the signals,
| warning-lights, whatever in orange, white, yellow, red, green,
| blue lining all tracks and the ramps going up and down into and
| out of it. I'll never forget that, because it was so unexpected.
| Almost like the glide-path indicators during night approaching
| large airports, as seen from the cockpit. But below the ground.
| And not old and grimy at all. Modern, light concrete. Really very
| 'spacy'.
|
| Maybe because it would be unwise to go there, because not
| abandoned? Anyways, at the times I rode through there it was
| empty, no other trains at all. Just the blank tracks and switches
| reflecting all those colored lights and signals.
|
| I really wonder what and where exactly that was.
| oliv__ wrote:
| Maybe near Nation?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I can't tell anymore. I didn't even take the Metro initially
| because according to the city maps/plans I had, I thought I
| would just walk. Then I got lost and tired with two suitcases
| after walking through some busisness district with tall high-
| rises and colored glass facades(blue, green, bronze/golden,
| darkgray) and given up. I wanted to see the Eiffel-Tower, but
| didn't. That made me angry and feel stupid at the times :-)
|
| However, I needed to catch my train from the other terminus,
| so I capitulated and took the metro from some other large
| station which I can't remember anymore. What I do remember
| was desperation with the ticket machine there with
| instructions I couldn't really read at the time. Been lucky
| because there were some tourists there who spoke german, and
| they helped me with the thing. (Bling! Multipass!)
|
| Arrived at Gare du Nord, had to go to some other 'Gare' which
| I also can't remember anymore. But at that time the trains to
| Spain over Hendaye/Irun departed from there. Which meanwhile
| changed, I guess.
| leoc wrote:
| If you grub around on YouTube you can find plenty of coverage of
| the London Underground's ghost stations.
| z303 wrote:
| and a bit more background
|
| https://www.metafilter.com/135298/Ghost-Stations-of-the-Tube
| 2ion wrote:
| Always disgusting to see every kind of major building in
| (Western?) cities smeared by graffiti etc, be it in use (and
| under constant cleaning) or disused (ghost stations...). There's
| zero appreciation of the building itself, the expenses for its
| construction/upkeep or the possibility of putting it into use
| again, preserving the structure and materials in the best way
| possible. It's what I always notice first about this type of
| documentation, it's quite disappointing.
| anticristi wrote:
| Alternatively, you can call it "Street Art" and promote it:
| https://www.swedishnomad.com/malmo-street-art/
|
| Personally, I feel it's odd to combat graffiti by making it
| legal, but the result looks good to me.
| erdewit wrote:
| Some photos look exactly like Battlefield - Operation Metro.
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(page generated 2021-05-29 23:00 UTC)