Ghost Stations of the Paris Metro - Abandoned Stations

2016-04-01 1

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1. Arsenal (Métro Paris)
2. Champ de Mars (Paris Métro)
3. Croix-Rouge
4. Haxo (Paris Métro)
5. Porte Molitor (Paris Métro)
6. Saint-Martin (Paris Métro)
7. Porte des Lilas (Paris Métro)
8. Gare du Nord
9. Victor Hugo

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_stations_of_the_Paris_M%C3%A9tro

Music : Blank Holes, Jingle Punks, YouTube Audio Library

Ghost stations of the Paris Métro are stations that have been closed to the public and are no longer used in commercial service. For historical or economical reasons, many stations on the Paris Métro have been made inaccessible and lie unused, conferring a sense of mystery over Parisians.

The majority of these ghost stations were closed when France entered World War II in September 1939, and some have been closed ever since. Others have been reused or disappeared completely as the network evolved. Two stations were constructed but never actually used, and today still lie inaccessible to the public. Three others were designed but were never serviced by a Métro line.

Two stations on the Paris Métro were constructed but never used, and have no way to be accessed by the public: Porte Molitor and Haxo. Only during rare special service to these stations can they be visited.

Porte Molitor is a station constructed in 1923 on a linking of lines 9 and 10 and was originally intended to service the stadiums Parc des Princes and Roland Garros on the nights of matches. Logistics of this service became too complex, however, and the project was abandoned; access to the station was never constructed. The tracks today serve as a garage for trains.

A special tunnel, the voie des Fêtes, links the Place des Fêtes to the Porte des Lilas with an intermediary station called Haxo, constructed in 1921. This tunnel was intended to connect lines 3 and 7 (now 3bis and 7bis). Actually the tunnel was never used as it was decided to run a shuttle service between the stations of each of these lines. This shuttle proved unpopular with passengers and service stopped in 1939. Haxo has never been used for passenger transport, and there is no street level access.

At the beginning of World War II, the French government put into action a plan that called for reduced service on the Métro network; specifically, it closed all but 85 stations. The majority of stations that were closed reopened in the following years, however some lightly trafficked and therefore unprofitable stations remained closed for a longer time.

Varenne (line 14, now line 13) re-opened on December 24, 1962, followed by the station Bel-Air (line 6) on January 7, 1963. Rennes (line 12) and Liège (line 13) re-opened to the public after about 30 years of being closed, on May 20, 1968 and September 16, 1968 respectively. These stations were subject to abbreviated schedules: they closed at 8 PM on weekdays and Saturdays, and did not open on Sundays and holidays. Rennes returned to normal service schedules on September 6, 2004, and Liège, the last station on an abbreviated schedule of the network, returned to normal hours on December 4, 2006.

Cluny (line 10) remained forgotten for almost half a century, however the construction of the train station Saint-Michel - Notre-Dame to service line B of the RER caused it to be re-opened in order to provide a connection to line 10. It was re-opened to the public on February 17, 1988, the same day on which the RER line B station was opened. The station was renamed to Cluny – La Sorbonne.

The station Saint-Martin was closed in 1939, opened after the Liberation and closed again. This station was situated on the Grands Boulevards and therefore served as an important access point, however it was eventually closed again because of its proximity—less than 100 metres (110 yd)—to the neighboring station Strasbourg – Saint-Denis.

Three stations have remained closed since 1939: Arsenal (line 5), Champ de Mars (line 8), and Croix-Rouge (line 10).

Two other open stations contain unused platforms