Gare du Nord

Paris Nord (or Gare du Nord, "North Station", pronounced: [ɡaʁ dy nɔːʁ]) is one of the six large terminus railway stations of the SNCF mainline network for Paris, France. It offers connections with several urban transportation lines, including Paris Métro and RER. By the number of travelers, at around 190 million per year, it is the busiest railway station in Europe.^[1]

The Gare du Nord handles trains to Northern France, as well as to various international destinations such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The station complex was designed by French architect Jacques Hittorff and built between 1861 and 1864. It is situated in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

History

The first Gare du Nord was built by Bridge and Roadway Engineers on the behalf of the Chemin de Fer du Nord company, which was notably managed by Léonce Reynaud, professor of architecture at the École Polytechnique. The station was inaugurated on 14 June 1846, the same year as the launch of the Paris–Amiens–Lille rail link. Since the station turned out to be too small in size, it was partially demolished in 1860 to provide space for the current station. The original station's façade was removed and transferred to Lille.

The president of the company Chemin de Fer du Nord, James Mayer de Rothschild, chose French architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff to design the current station. Construction lasted from May 1861 to December 1865, but the new station opened for service while still under construction in 1864. The façade was designed around a triumphal arch and used many slabs of stone. The building has the usual U-shape of a terminus station. The main support beam is made out of cast iron. The support pillars inside the station were made at Alston & Gourley's ironworks in Glasgow in the United Kingdom, the only country to contain a sufficiently large foundry to do so.

The sculptural program represents the cities served by the company. The eight most majestic statues, which crown the building along the cornice line, illustrate international destinations, with the ninth figure of Paris in the center. Fourteen more modest statues of northern French cities are arrayed lower on the facade. The sculptors represented are:

• London and Vienna by Jean-Louis Jaley
• Brussels and Warsaw by François Jouffroy
• Amsterdam by Charles Gumery
• Frankfurt by Gabriel Thomas
• Berlin by Jean-Joseph Perraud
• Cologne by Mathurin Moreau
• Paris, Boulogne and Compiegne by Pierre-Jules Cavelier
• Arras and Laon by Théodore-Charles Gruyère
• Lille and Beauvais by Charles-François Lebœuf
• Valenciennes and Calais by Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire
• Rouen and Amiens by Eugène-Louis Lequesne
• Douai and Dunkirk by Gustave Crauck
• Cambrai and Saint-Quentin by Auguste Ottin

In 1927 an American multi-millionairess named Alice de Janzé shot herself and her British lover, Raymund de Trafford, on board a train at the Gare du Nord. The two survived their injuries.^[2]

Service

Like other Parisian railway stations, the Gare du Nord rapidly became too small to deal with the increase in railway traffic. In 1884, engineers were able to add five supplementary tracks. The interior was completely rebuilt in 1889 and an extension was built on the eastern side to serve suburban rail lines. More expansion work was carried out between the 1930s and the 1960s.

Beginning in 1906 and 1908, the station was served by the Line 4, which crosses Paris from north to south, and the terminus of Line 5, which extended to Gare de Lyon. In the 1930s, Line 5 was extended towards the suburbs of Pantin and Bobigny. Line 2 (station La Chapelle) is linked to the Gare du Nord via an underground tunnel. One enters the Métro station and, instead of climbing the stairs that lead to the elevated métro line (not all of Line 2 is elevated) descends several flights of stairs, before traversing a long, arched circular hallway to enter the station.

Finally, in 1994, the arrival of Eurostar trains required another reorganisation of the rail tracks:

• Platforms 1 and 2 :: Service platforms, not open to the public.
• Platforms 3 to 6 :: Terminus of the London Eurostar via the Channel Tunnel.
• Platforms 7 and 8 :: Thalys platforms for Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
• Platforms 9 to 18 :: TGV North, Main Line trains, and some Picard TER.
• Platforms 19 to 21 :: Picard TER.
• Platforms 30 to 36 :: Suburban station, Transiliens and Picard TER (Paris-Beauvais line)
• Platforms 41 to 44 (underground) :: RER station, lines B and D.
• 4 Métro Platforms (underground) :: Lines 4&5

It is also connected to Magenta RER Station (4 platforms, line E) and La Chapelle Métro Station (2 platforms, line 2)

There is a further construction project to build a connecting hallway between Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est, which is projected to open around the time when the new LGV Est begins serving the station. When open the Gare du Nord-Gare de l'Est complex (including Magenta & La Chapelle) will have 77 platforms, more than any other rail station in the world.

Security for the station is provided by the French police, the railways police and private security companies.^[3] Due to the position of the station as a gateway to the northern suburbs of Paris, there are some parts of the station where security incidents occur from time to time.^[4]

In popular culture

The Gare du Nord has served as a backdrop in numerous French films, for instance in Les Poupées Russes.

In US movies, both the exterior and the interior of the Gare du Nord are seen in the 2002 film The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon and again in the trilogy's finale, The Bourne Ultimatum, released in August 2007. It was also seen in Ocean's Twelve in 2004, and Mr Bean's Holiday in 2007.

It is also mentioned in "Polaris" by Jimmy Eat World off their album Futures. In addition, the station was featured in the video for the song "Home" by Blake Shelton.

The station is also mentioned in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, as well as in The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

Train Services

The following services currently call at Paris Nord:

• high speed services (Eurostar) Paris - Lille - London
• high speed services (Thalys) Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam
• high speed services (Thalys) Paris - Brussels - Cologne - Essen
• high speed services (Thalys) Paris - Brussels - Ostend

RER

(See ^[5])
Connects to the B and D lines in the basement. Line B serves Charles de Gaulle airport (Roissy). Line D assures a quick passage between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon. Both lines serve Stade de France in Saint-Denis.

The RER station is directly connected to Magenta station, which was constructed further underground to the east of the Gare du Nord. It is served by the RER E line that offers a link between the Gare du Nord and Saint-Lazare/Gare Saint-Lazare.

Paris Métro

• Lines 4 and 5, whose following station is Gare de l'Est.
• There has been a connecting hallway connecting the RER station with La Chapelle on Line 2 since the 1990s.

See also

• List of stations of the Paris RER
• List of stations of the Paris Métro

Notes

External links

• Gare du Nord
• Gare du Nord Photo Tour | Paris By Train