Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Metro spotting


I'm not a train spotter, but I happened to find myself at Pasteur metro station today where the line leaves the underground and continues all the way to the 16th arrondissment (including the crossing of the Seine on the typical Bir Hakeim bridge) on the open air. When the metro was built, the idea of having elevated sections like this one was pretty controversial as you can imagine. People were afraid that it would destroy the nice perspective of our streets... Which it does! But only partly, and only in areas where going underground was difficult (at that time anyway). It is also noisy, but less since they replaced the steel wheels with tires.

14 comments:

  1. Love the lines...and Paris peeking in! Well done, Eric! Thanks for great pictures!

    mammie

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  2. Eric this is one of your best of all time!!!!!

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  3. Eric, thanks again for another awesome picture. Partini

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  4. I am not so sure I would agree with ET. All the same I love this photograph. I spent my youth standing in a similar position gazing down admiringly at the trains that passed beneath my feet. Your photograph has prompted many memories. Thank you.

    Dermo

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  5. Great photo. I agree the lines and composition are really nice.

    Major infrastructure is always controversial: and always has been, as your historical story shows. We all love the convenience of riding the Metro, but build it over there, Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY). Uh, oh, gag the planner before he gets started. Here are some other fun words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY

    You Brits will love SOBBY.

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  6. I don't know what it is with this shot in particular, but it really makes me long for Paris.So I don't know if I should thank you or not, Eric.
    I love the Parisien Metro and I never think it's wasted time spent underground. I love the variety of the stations and that some of them are really beautiful.

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  7. As I was saying to you over lunch yesterday Eric (yes, folks, he IS pin-downable, around about once every two years or so ;~S ), we often seem to track each other with our pics.

    This is a great example as you can see from this recent pic of mine from, curiously, the other side of Paris - who knows where it is?!

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  8. You're such a name dropper Sab!
    Anyway, as I was saying to Brad and Angelina over lunch yesterday, the MP73 multiple units of 5 cars shown here are used exclusively on line 6, with one notable exception, one 4 car unit used on line 11.
    They were a bit gutted to say the least, as they thought they had spotted all the MP73 cars from their vantage point of their former apartment overlooking Bir Hakeim station on line 6.

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  9. I like this!
    Drummond and Sab, you two are shameless.

    Oh, looky! A box to click to email follow-up comments! We might not all have to move to WordPress after all.

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  10. When my boyfriend and I were in Paris a couple of years ago, we ended up getting on the Metro going in the opposite direction of where we had planned. Instead of getting off and getting back on in the right direction (too easy) we rode to the end of the line and then got back on. We got to see a lot of Paris we never otherwise would have. It was one of those unplanned adventures that ended up being a lot of fun.

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  11. I absolutely LOVE this photo...a view that a true "flaneur" would love...something I would see on my daily walks.. merci!!

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  12. Hi Drummond & Petrea :-D
    Monnica, sometimes I actually do just get on ANY metro to see what happens. Things often do.

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  13. Eric,

    Wonderful shot! This one truely makes me long for Paris as I have a special place in my heart for the above ground sections of line 6.

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  14. Sab, that sounds like so much fun. I've only been to Paris once, and like most tourists I spent most of the time in the city center. When it was time to leave and we took the train to the airport, we began to see some of the rest of the city. We already knew we'd be back but that trip told us how much more there was to explore.

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