Voie navette
Voie navette is the name of a connection line used for internal purposes in the Paris Métro network between the Porte des Lilas station ( line 3bis ) and the Pré-Saint-Gervais station ( line 7bis ) in the 19th arrondissement . It is 770 meters long, has a gradient of 40 ‰ over a length of 300 meters and at its eastern end describes a tight curve with a curve radius of 65 meters. The name Voie navette means something like "shuttle track" in German.
Emergence
Planning
As early as 1901, Fulgence Bienvenüe , the "father" of the Paris Métro , proposed an extension of line 3 from the Gambetta station to Romainville (today: Porte des Lilas ). Beyond the Porte des Lilas station , a double-track tunnel, which later branches out into two single-track tunnels, was supposed to create a connection to Line 7 (today: Line 7bis ) in order to set up train operations on this line to Porte des Lilas can.
One directional track at this junction was supposed to connect to the Place des Fêtes station and have an intermediate station with only one directional platform called Haxo , while the other directional track should connect to the Pré-Saint-Gervais station and pass through without an intermediate stop. In addition, two separate stops with a total of four platforms were planned in the area of the Porte des Lilas station for line 3, which was extended by Gambetta : a terminus with an adjoining turning loop and a through station on the connecting tracks to line 7. The planned extension should include the additional connecting line Have a total length of 2.157 kilometers.
Construction of the route
Construction work to extend line 3 to Porte des Lilas began in 1910. However, completion was delayed due to the First World War until 1921. In the meantime, the plan to connect line 7 to Porte des Lilas had been abandoned as this station was operated by the trains on line 3 were considered sufficient ( line 11 did not even exist at the time). However, in order to enable a change between lines 3 and 7, it was decided to set up a line service on the northern connecting track in the form of a shuttle train. The name Voie navette comes from this use of the tunnel , as a shuttle service is called une navette in French . A train from the Sprague-Thomson series consisting of two “small railcars” each 10.85 meters long , which had been withdrawn from line 2 , was used. The southern track connection, known as Voie des Fêtes because of the connection to the Place des Fêtes station , and the single-track Haxo station remained unused for this reason: the track was only used to park the trains on line 3, the station was not completed and remained even completely without access from street level.
Shuttle operation
The shuttle service began on November 27, 1921 at the same time as the service on the extension of line 3 to Porte des Lilas . However, the pendulum line stopped operating on the Voie navette with the outbreak of the Second World War as a result of mobilization at the Métro operator company CMP and the resulting restricted service on September 3, 1939. At the same time, the stop at Porte des Lilas station , which did not serve as the terminus for line 3, was closed.
After the war, the shuttle service on the Voie navette was not resumed due to the very low capacity utilization.
Test track for Pilotage automatique and rubber-tired trains
Instead, the route was used for numerous test drives by the RATP , including in particular those for automatic train control and those with the world's first prototype of a rubber-tyred underground train (railcar MP 51, between 1952 and 1956). With a length of only 770 m, it has all the requirements for a demanding test route: a tight curve with a radius of only 75 m and a 300 m long mountain route with a gradient of 40 ‰.
The rubber-tire test train appeared to the engineers of the operating company to be completely safe after the first test drives and was then used daily between 1.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. with passengers on the Voie navette until 1956 . However, it was not a matter of resuming normal traffic on this route, as operations were regularly interrupted for maintenance of the railcar without replacement. The occupancy rate remained very weak and consisted mainly of curious people and school children. The latter in particular was often left the driver's seat of the train, since the automatic train control only had to be put into operation for the journey, which the RATP was simultaneously testing on this car.
Current condition
After the Voie navette had served as a training track for the drivers of the rubber-tyred metro trains, it was converted at the northern end near the Pré-Saint-Gervais station into an area for enhanced technical controls of the rolling stock, which consists of a small maintenance workshop for the very vulnerable MF 88 series, which is in use on line 7bis , exists. The remainder of the Voie navette tunnel is used to park trains.
At the southern end, the Porte des Lilas - Cinéma station, which has been unused and closed since 1939, has found a special use on the connecting tracks from Line 3 to Voie navette and Voie des Fêtes : It has been converted into a permanent location for advertising and cinema films as film recordings in the other operating metro stations are not possible or only possible to a very limited extent due to the short night-time break in operation. Most of the films that are set in the Métro were shot there. Imitation enamel signs with the names of other stations are made according to the needs of the script in order to transform the station into another station for the duration of the shooting.
Future development
In the event of a possible merging of line 3bis with line 7bis , the Voie navette would again function as a regular stretch of the line and take over the function originally intended. The merging of the two lines into a future line 15 is planned in the master plan for the capital region of Ile-de-France from 2013, the time frame extends beyond 2030.
literature
- Jean Robert: Notre Métro. Editions Jean Robert, Paris 1983.
- Le patrimoine de la RATP. Éditions Flohic, 1996, ISBN 2-84234-007-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Presentation of the route at «carto.metro.free.fr» , visited on September 13, 2009.
- ^ Jean Robert, Notre métro. P. 151.
- ↑ Jean Robert, ibid. Pp. 104-105.
- ↑ Jean Robert, ibid. P. 135.
- ^ Jean Robert, Notre métro, éd. Jean Robert, 1983.
- ↑ Jean Robert, ibid. P. 152.
- ↑ Île-de-France 2030. Propositions pour la mise en œuvre / Annexe ( Memento of the original of February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. P. 22, accessed on March 3, 2016.
