Metro line 7bis (Paris)
 
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| Route length: | 3.1 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opening: | 1967 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Passengers (daily) : | 10,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stations: | 8th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The line 7 to the Paris Metro is after the line 3 to the second shortest line of the Paris metro network . The line, which is almost entirely in the 19th arrondissement , runs through the north-east of Paris. It runs between the Louis Blanc stations at the western end and Pré-Saint-Gervais at the eastern end of the line. Line 7 bis can change to lines 2, 5, 7, 11. The additional Latin name bis indicates a supplementary line to the regular line 7, the name 7 bis corresponds to the German "7a".
history
chronology
On January 18, 1911, the Louis Blanc - Pré-Saint-Gervais section was opened, which is initially served as a branch by line 7 . Over time, however, the main passenger flows became more and more unbalanced, so that on December 3, 1967 the independent line 7bis was created from the route mentioned.
History of line 7 bis as part of line 7
The planning of line 7 of the Paris Metro from March 30, 1898 envisaged the construction of a line between the Danube and Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre stations . However, the city council of Paris decided in 1905 to move the southern terminus to Hôtel de Ville and the northern terminus of the line to Pré-Saint-Gervais. At the same time it was decided to build a branch line between Louis Blanc and Porte de la Villette . Construction work on the new line began immediately afterwards, and on November 5, 1910, the first section from Opéra to Porte de la Villette was opened, although this was not included in the planning until much later.
The delays in the construction of the branch line to Pré-Saint-Gervais can be explained by the difficult nature of the subsoil, which consists of three layers of gypsum with a layer of marl between each. In addition, the top layer of plaster beneath the Buttes-Chaumont Park and the Quartier d'Amérique is perforated by former quarries that were in operation until the mid-19th century, which made the construction work particularly difficult. These quarries have the shape of galleries, each around 10 meters high and wide, between which massive pillars with a diameter of 8 to 10 meters support the ceiling of the quarrying site and thus the terrain above. When the resources in the quarries were exhausted, they were occasionally more or less replenished, but sometimes the pillars were destroyed to cause the overlying land to sag. Building a tunnel in such unstable terrain was a daring undertaking for the engineers and required complex structures to be built. The route has to traverse completely uneven terrain and cut through pillars that carry a considerable load.
Under the Buttes-Chaumont Park and Rue Botzaris, the tunnel crosses the former quarries over a length of 380 meters. The pillars of the tunnel rest on masonry shaft rings with a diameter of 1.5 meters and a distance of six meters from one another. East of the Buttes-Chaumont station, the manhole rings reach the bottom of the quarry 2.5 meters below the tunnel floor. However, these precautions were not enough and the tunnel began to shift during construction. It was therefore necessary to erect an additional axial pillar in the center of the tunnel, reaching down to the bottom of the quarry below. This explains the unusual (for Paris metro stations) the construction of the Buttes-Chaumont station, which consists of two round vaults and thus more or less two station sections, each with only one directional track. In order to prevent the ground from moving sideways, the entire building was provided with braces made of plaster of paris, which continue in brick braces in the horizontal galleries perpendicular to the pillars.
But the construction work turned out to be even more complicated when crossing under the Quartier d'Amérique , which derives its name from the destination country to which part of the quarried gypsum was exported. Because here it was not the top layer of plaster that was removed, but all three layers on top of each other. The northern tunnel of the line's end loop crosses the quarries under Rue du Général-Brunet and Rue David-d'Angers over a length of 550 meters. It was therefore necessary to support the tunnel on stable ground, i.e. H. under the three existing layers. Some of the supporting pillars reach a height of 35 meters and take the form of an underground viaduct. This constellation explains the difficulty of erecting stations on a stable base: The Danube station was built for two tracks and has two station sections for one directional track each, which are separated by a central wall that functions as a pillar. This load-bearing wall rests on manhole rings laid out in three rows that are 2.5 meters in diameter and six meters apart. No less than 220 wells , which reach a cumulative total height of 5.5 kilometers, were built in this section of the route.
This second section of line 7 from Louis Blanc to Pré-Saint-Gervais was opened on January 18, 1911, delayed by the structural difficulties. The Buttes-Chaumont and Place des Fêtes stations did not even open until February 13, 1912. The operation on line 7 was carried out by trains that alternated from the main line from Louis Blanc to one of the two end stations, which broke with the purely two-way operation practiced up to now in the rest of the Paris Metro network.
Business interruption in World War II
When France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the later line 7 bis was completely closed along with other lines . The reason was that many Métro employees were drafted into the military. This branch of line 7 was reopened on September 30, 1939.
Separation of line 7 to from line 7
After line 7 had been successively extended south to the Mairie d'Ivry station (opened May 1, 1946), there was an imbalance in terms of passenger numbers: at the Porte de la Villette station there is one of bus routes from the suburbs heavily frequented terminus, which gave this branch a much greater load than that to Pré-Saint-Gervais. In order to simplify operations on line 7 , it was therefore decided to separate the branch to Pré-Saint-Gervais and to set up an independent line there called 7 bis . On December 3, 1967, the separation and establishment of an independent line on this section took place. The line has a length of 3.066 kilometers with 8 stations and thus became the shortest line in the metro network until line 3 bis , which was separated from line 3 on March 27, 1971.
Name changes of stations
In the course of the more than 100-year history of the Paris Metro, the official name of a number of underground stations has changed. Some stations have even been renamed several times. On line 7 bis , only the Jaurès station was affected: until 1914 it was called Rue d'Allemagne.
Technical innovations
Line 7bis was the last line in the metro network to be equipped with a central interlocking called PCC in February 1975. However, it is not provided with a fully automatic driver system, as the restricted regular service does not justify its establishment.
vehicles
Line 7 bis was equipped with trains from the Sprague-Thomson series until 1981 and then received trains from the MF 67 series . Today it is the only line in the entire metro network on which trains of the MF 88 series run, which replaced the previous material there in 1994. However, these are not very reliable, which is why one is considering using the older MF 67s, which are cheaper to maintain. The MF 67 would be withdrawn from line 2 because completely new trains of the MF 2000 series have been gradually introduced there since 2008. Not a single car should remain from the MF 88 series.
Route and stations
Route
The total length of line 7 bis is 3.066 kilometers, it runs completely underground. Line 7 bis runs in a north-easterly direction under Rue Lafayette and first crosses under the Canal Saint-Martin before reaching Jaurès station . After a curve with a radius of 100 meters, it runs south-east under Avenue Secrétan. The route leads here on a ramp with a gradient of 40 ‰, via which the line reaches the Bolivar station . The tunnel then runs under the Buttes-Chaumont Park as a ramp with a 40 ‰ gradient. On the southern edge of the park is the Buttes-Chaumont station , which was built at great depth below the Quartier des Buttes Chaumont , which is littered with gypsum quarries.
Now running east, the line follows the southern end of the park under Rue Botzaris and serves the station of the same name. The Buttes-Chaumont and Botzaris stations each consist of two half stations, which are separated by a supporting wall. The final loop of the line begins in the latter station. The initially single-track tunnel is located under the Rue de Crimée and then expands to two tracks before it reaches the low-lying Place des Fêtes station with a central platform. Under the Rue du Pré-Saint-Gervais, the line becomes single-track again and moves away to the right from the Voie des Fêtes , a connecting route that continues in the direction of Porte des Lilas . First, the line reaches its apex, which is a curve under the intersection of Boulevard Sérurier and Rue des Bois. There it also crosses under the Voie des Fêtes in order to then reach the terminus Pré-Saint-Gervais, which also has a central platform with two tracks. The southern track in the station is used by line 7 bis , the northern track belongs to the so-called Voie navette , a connecting line that, like the Voie des Fêtes, establishes the relation to line 3 bis .
The loop now runs on two tracks for a length of 900 meters under Rue David-d'Angers and reaches the Danube station, which consists of two parallel tubes. The tunnel now also has two tracks under the Rue du Général-Brunet before it becomes single track again and again reaches the Botzaris station.
Planning
There have been plans for a long time to merge line 7 bis with line 3 bis . These plans were published in September 2008 in the "Schéma directeur de la région Île-de-France". They provide for the use of the track connections with line 3 to via the Voie navette between Pré-Saint-Gervais and Porte des Lilas and via the Voie des Fêtes between the stations Place des Fêtes and Porte des Lilas. The line would then probably be extended as line 19 beyond Louis Blanc to Château Landon or Magenta and would also connect the Gare de l'Est station .
Notable stations
The Bolivar station commemorated the South American general and statesman Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), one of the leading figures in the struggle for the independence of South America from Spain , with photographs and a biography on the Louis Blanc directional platform . However, this redesign was removed in February 2009 to renew the station as part of the “Renouveau du Métro” campaign.
The Place des Fêtes station is only served in the direction of Pré-Saint-Gervais, although it has two tracks and a central platform; the northern track serves as a siding for trains.
The Danube station, however, is only served in the direction of Louis Blanc; it also has two tracks, as the section from Pré-Saint-Gervais to the eastern entrance of the Botzaris station consists of two tracks, one of which is used as a siding and, more recently, as a workshop for the ongoing maintenance of the trains on this line.
The Haxo station was originally intended to enable a connection between lines 3 bis and 7 bis in order to be able to make a single line out of both lines. This plan was abandoned in 1921, but the Haxo station and a platform on the Voie des Fêtes were built. The station is still in the shell state.
Operations at the Louis Blanc terminus were originally organized in such a way that there were platform-level transfer options in both directions for line 7 : the train coming from Pré-Saint-Gervais first stopped at the upper platform of line 7 (heading south: Mairie d'Ivry and Villejuif - Louis Aragon ) to let the passengers off, and then drove empty into the tunnel. There he turned around to go to the lower platform of line 7 (heading north: La Courneuve ) , pick up the passengers there and drive back to Pré-Saint-Gervais. As a result of the vulnerability of the rolling stock, this turning maneuver has now been simplified by the fact that the lower platform is no longer served and the trains return directly from the upper platform; this simplification, decided for technical reasons, also makes the work of the train drivers easier.
Track connections
The line has four track connections with the rest of the Métro network:
- Track connections with line 7 south of the Louis Blanc station in both directions
- Track connections with line 3 to via the Voie navette between Pré-Saint-Gervais and Porte des Lilas (this connection is no longer used because a maintenance workshop has been set up on this track in the Pré-Saint-Gervais station) and via the Voie des Fêtes between the Place des Fêtes and Porte des Lilas stations.
workshops
As with lines 3 and 3 to , the rolling stock of the line is always serviced in the Saint-Fargeau workshop , which is connected to the Gambetta station via a rail link . However, the unreliability of the MF 88 series made it necessary to set up an additional workshop for shorter maintenance intervals and more intensive investigations, which was built as a branch of the operating workshop on one of the two tracks of the Pré-Saint-Gervais station and on a section of the Voie navette . This measure allows the material to be looked after without having to use the winding overpass tracks too often, which, like the Voie navette, have to be used as access to the main Saint-Fargeau workshop.
The major repair work and the regular overhaul of the material on line 7bis take place, as with all metal-wheeled trains in the metro network, in the workshops in Choisy at the southern end of line 7 . The workshops, which opened in 1931, are located in the 13th arrondissement near the boulevard périphérique and are reached by a junction on line 7. They consist of two different parts: one workshop is responsible for the maintenance of the trains on line 7, the other for the overhaul of all trains on the metro network that run on metal wheels. The workshops occupy a total area of approximately 34,350 m² and employ approx. 330 employees (2007).
Operating times and cycle
The travel time on the route is only 8 minutes in each direction. The first train departs at 5.31 a.m. from Pré-Saint-Gervais and at 5.44 a.m. from Louis Blanc, the last train departs at 0.47 a.m. from Place des Fêtes and 1.07 a.m. from Louis Blanc.
The average train interval is four to five minutes in daytime traffic and between seven and nine minutes in the late evening. On Sunday mornings, the frequency is 7.5 minutes, on the weekend nights and before public holidays a train leaves every ten minutes. Line 7bis is the least serviced in the entire metro network.
literature
- Jean Tricoire: Un siècle de métro en 14 lignes: De Bienvenüe à Météor . 3. Edition. La Vie du Rail, Paris 2004. ISBN 2-915034-32-X .
- Schéma directeur de la region Île-de-France, Projet final de SDRIF adopté par le Conseil régional le 25 septembre 2008 [archive], p. 81, left column and p. 138, right column.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mark Ovenden: Paris Underground . Penguin Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-311639-4 , pp. 77 .
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