Metro line 8 (Paris)
The line 8 of the Paris Métro connects the stations Balard in the southwest and Pointe du Lac in the southeast of Paris . It is the line of the Paris metro network with the longest route between the two end stations. Only line 13 is longer, but it has two branches. Line 8 can be used to reach ten of the twenty Parisian arrondissements , as well as the municipalities of Charenton-le-Pont , Maisons-Alfort and Créteil . With the extension to Créteil, a Paris metro line ran to the capital of a department outside Paris for the first time .
history
Building history
Line 8 is the last to be built after the concession of 1898, it was supposed to go from the Opéra to the Porte d'Auteuil . In 1910 a branch to the Porte de Sèvres was decided (today Balard ). There are two types of stations on this line; those with metal covers and those with tunnel construction.
The Opéra station , where 3 metro lines intersect, was completely built when line 3 was built. The construction work under the Concorde and Invalides bridges took 3 years, as the open tunnel construction had to be carried out here. The ramps to this section have gradients of up to 40 ‰.
On July 13, 1913, the first section of line 8 was opened from the Opéra to the Beaugrenelle station (today Charles Michels ), the latter now belongs to line 10. On September 30 of the same year, the extension to the Porte d'Auteuil station was added.
The La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle station was built with three tracks from the start, as a later branch to Place Balard was planned there. To the south of the station, under Rue du Commerce, there was not enough space next to each other for the two line trunks (the street is only 12 meters wide), so they made do with tracks on two floors. The Champ de Mars station, which is now closed, is located very close to the La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle station . It was closed in 1939 and did not reopen after the war; the short distance of only 100 meters to the next train station justified this. (A description of the Auteuil branch can be found here .)
In 1922 the decision was made to extend it: Line 8 was to run as a parabolic axis from Auteuil via Opéra , République and Bastille to Porte Dorée .
On June 30, 1928, the first section of this extension went into operation, from the Opéra east to Richelieu-Drouot station . This is where the structurally extremely interesting section begins, on which lines 8 and 9 run one above the other. This section extends over several stations, at the (now closed) Saint-Martin station , both lines reach a common level, after which they flow into the complex République station structure . Here five lines meet (3, 5, 8, 9 and 11).
The Saint-Martin station was closed twice: The first time in 1939 when the Second World War broke out (reopened in 1945), and again in the early 1950s because it is too close to the Strasbourg Saint-Denis station . On May 5, 1931, the extension to the Porte de Charenton was put into operation.
Redesign of the route network in the southwest
In 1937, the metro network in the south-west of Paris was redesigned: On July 27, a new branch of the 8 was put into operation, from La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle to Balard station . The Auteuil branch, however, was added to Line 10, which reached the La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle station via a new route from Duroc.
Extension of line 8 in the southeast
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All further extensions concerned the eastern part of the line: October 5, 1942 from Porte de Charenton to Charenton-Écoles station . The seventies continued: Charenton-Écoles - Maisons-Alfort Stade on September 19, 1970, Maisons-Alfort Stade - Maisons-Alfort Les Juilliottes on April 27, 1972, Maisons-Alfort Les Juilliottes - Créteil l'Échat on April 26 , 1972 September 1973 and Créteil l'Échat - Créteil Prefecture on September 10, 1974. On October 8, 2011 the line was extended by one station to Pointe du Lac.
A total of 4.1 km of the route runs above ground. These are all in the southeast area. The crossing of the Marne between the Charenton - Écoles and École vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort stations also takes place on a bridge.
Second World War
When France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, line 8 to the west of the République metro station, along with other lines, was completely closed. The reason was that many Métro employees were drafted into the military. On September 30, it was reduced to the Reuilly - Diderot - Porte de Charenton section , and the line between Richelieu - Drouot and Balard reopened. It was not until July 6, 1940 that the line went back into continuous operation.
Renamed stations
During the more than 100-year history of the Paris Metro, the official names of a number of stations have changed. Some stations have even been renamed several times. The following stations were affected on line 8:
| today's name | since | previous name (s) |
|---|---|---|
| La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle | 1913 | La Motte-Picquet |
| Saint-Sébastien - Froissart | 1932 | Saint-Sébastien |
| École Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort | 1996 | Maisons-Alfort - École Vétérinaire |
| Grands Boulevards | 1998 | Rue Montmartre |
Technical innovations, vehicles
In 1971 a central control center PCC was introduced, five years later the (semi-) automatic train operation, called Pilotage automatique . The SIEL passenger information system has been installed at the 8 train stations since 2006
In 1975 the trains of the MF 67 series replaced the old Sprague cars ; In 1980 these were again replaced by the MF 77 series .
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 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mark Ovenden: Paris Underground . Penguin Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-311639-4 , pp. 77 .
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