Paris-Montparnasse train station

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Paris-Montparnasse
Station building from 1990 with Porte Océane glass facade
Station building from 1990 with Porte Océane glass facade
Data
Location in the network Terminus
Design Terminus
Platform tracks 28
IBNR 8700013
opening September 10, 1840
location
City / municipality Paris
Department Paris
region Île-de-France
Country France
Coordinates 48 ° 50 '25 "  N , 2 ° 19' 9"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 50 '25 "  N , 2 ° 19' 9"  E
Railway lines
List of train stations in France
i16 i16 i18

The Paris-Montparnasse train station ( Gare de Paris-Montparnasse in French ) is one of the six major terminal stations in Paris . It is located in the southwest of the city in the 15th arrondissement on Place Raoul Dautry .

The station is an important traffic junction with transfer options between four lines of the Métro (lines 4 , 6 , 12 and 13 ) and connections in the high-speed network of the French railway company SNCF , which uses TGV trains from there mainly the main traffic lines in the direction of Brittany and the Atlantic coast , in served the west and southwest of France and Hendaye on the Spanish border.

history

Entrance building from 1852
Railway accident in 1895

The first Gare Montparnasse was built in 1840 under the name Gare de l'Ouest - Rive gauche at the end of Rue de Rennes at what was then Place de Rennes (today Place du 18 June 1940 ). The location was about 330 meters from the main entrance of what is now Gare Montparnasse. Since the old station was soon unable to cope with the increased volume of traffic, the second Gare de l'Ouest was built on the foundations of the first station from 1848 to 1852 under the direction of the engineer Eugène Flachat .

Towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, numerous migrant workers (mainly Bretons ) arrived at the Gare de l'Ouest to look for work in Paris .

Railway accident

View of the apron of Gare Montparnasse

The station became known through a serious railway accident on October 22, 1895 . The locomotive of a train that was traveling from Granville to Paris broke through the building wall of the terminal station after a brake failure. Its front part tipped over onto the street about ten meters below; the 14 wagons stopped on the tracks. A passerby was killed by falling debris. The photo of the locomotive hanging down from the station building is still very common today.

today

The current station was built in the 1960s as part of a real estate project on Place Raoul Dautry at the same time as the Tour Montparnasse high-rise and redesigned in 1990 when the first section of the LGV Atlantique high-speed line went into operation . A glass facade called Porte Océane was installed on the outside , which allows a view of the concrete interior architecture and is intended to allow an improved perception as a train station. A parking lot was created under parts of the tracks. On the roof, which spans 22 tracks of the station, there is the Jardin Atlantique, an approximately 150 x 230 meter large, publicly accessible garden. There is also the Mémorial Leclerc .

Served routes

Overview of the responsible train stations

numbers

Station concourse
Track side of the building
  • Every year around 115,000 trains are processed at Gare Montparnasse, which corresponds to an average of 315 trains per day.
  • The daily number of passengers is around 175,000, but the number of travelers during the holiday season can be up to 400,000 daily.
  • 300 SNCF employees work at Gare Montparnasse. There are 85 counters and 73 machines for ticket sales.
  • There are 28 above-ground tracks in the station. TGVs operate on tracks 1 to 9, Transilien trains on tracks 10 to 17 and the TER Center and TGVs on tracks 18 to 24 . There is also a side wing, the “Gare Vaugirard”, where tracks 25 to 28 are laid. From here, Corail Intercités (equivalent to the German Intercitys), TER trains to Granville and Argentan run .
  • There are a total of 52 escalators and 11 elevators in the station.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Due to the relocation, the Paris – Brest railway line has since started at km 0.5

See also

literature

  • Philippe Callé: The gateway to the Atlantic . In: Railways in Paris = Railway History Special 2 (2015). ISBN 978-3-937189-94-9 , pp. 39-41.

Web links

Commons : Paris Gare Montparnasse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files