[HN Gopher] Ghost Stations of the Paris Metro ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-29 23:00 UTC)