THE FIRST LINE OF PARIS MÉTRO OPENS FOR OPERATION

The Métropolitain

Today, The Grandma continues reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and she has revised some new grammar (Chapter 23) with her Intermediate Language Practice manual. 

Great Expectations is a novel that talks about evolution and how new technologies were going to change during the last three centuries. The Industrial Revolution meant an important change for society in the 19th because it was the origin of new projects in communications like the building of the subway networks in London, New York, Barcelona or Paris during the 20th century.

More info: Contrast I, II & III

On a day like today, in Paris, in 1900, the first line of subway was opened to public. The Grandma wants to remember this important event talking a little about it.

The Paris Métro, short for Métropolitain or Métro de Paris, is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the city limits, its uniform architecture, and its unique entrances influenced by Art Nouveau. It is mostly underground and 214 kilometres long. It has 303 stations, of which 62 have transfers between lines. There are 16 lines, numbered 1 to 14 with two lines, 3bis and 7bis, which are named because they started out as branches of lines 3 and 7; later they officially became separate lines; the Metro is still numbered as if these lines were absent. Lines are identified on maps by number and colour, and direction of travel is indicated by the terminus.

The Grandma is taking the Métropolitain, Paris

It is one of the densest metro systems in the world, with 245 stations within the 86.9 km2 of the city of Paris. Châtelet-Les Halles, with 5 Métro lines and three RER commuter rail lines, is the world's largest metro station.

The first line opened without ceremony on 19 July 1900, during the World's Fair Exposition Universelle. The system expanded quickly until the First World War and the core was complete by the 1920s. Extensions into suburbs and Line 11 were built in the 1930s. The network reached saturation after World War II with new trains to allow higher traffic, but further improvements have been limited by the design of the network and in particular the short distances between stations. 

More information: RATP

Besides the Métro, downtown Paris and its urban area are served by the RER developed from the 1960s, several tramway lines, Transilien suburban trains and two VAL lines, serving Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports. In the late 1990s, the automated line 14 was built to relieve RER line A.

Métro is the abbreviated name of the company that originally operated most of the network: La Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris, shortened to Le Métropolitain. It was quickly abbreviated to métro, which became a common word to designate all subway networks or any rapid transit system in France and in many cities elsewhere, a genericized trademark.

Old Grandma's memories in Paris

The Métro is operated by the Régie autonome des transports parisiens (RATP), a public transport authority that also operates part of the RER network, bus services, light rail lines and many bus routes. 

The name métro was adopted in many languages, making it the most used word for a, generally underground, urban transit system. It is possible that Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain was copied from the name of London's pioneering underground railway company, the Metropolitan Railway, which had been in business for almost 40 years prior to the inauguration of Paris's first line.

By 1845, Paris and the railway companies were already thinking about an urban railway system to link inner districts of the city. The railway companies and the French government wanted to extend main-line railroads into a new underground network, whereas the Parisians favoured a new and independent network and feared national takeover of any system it built. The disagreement lasted from 1856 to 1890. Meanwhile, the population became more dense and traffic congestion grew massively. The deadlock put pressure on the authorities and gave the city the chance to enforce its vision.

More information: Paris City

Prior to 1845, the urban transport network consisted primarily of a large number of omnibus lines, consolidated by the French government into a regulated system with fixed and unconflicting routes and schedules. The first concrete proposal for an urban rail system in Paris was put forward by civil engineer Florence de Kérizouet. This plan called for a surface cable car system. 

The Grandma in the Métropolitain

In 1855, civil engineers Edouard Brame and Eugène Flachat proposed an underground freight urban railroad, due to the high rate of accidents on surface rail lines. 

On 19 November 1871 the General Council of the Seine commissioned a team of 40 engineers to plan an urban rail network. This team proposed a network with a pattern of routes resembling a cross enclosed in a circle with axial routes following large boulevards. On 11 May 1872 the Council endorsed the plan, but the French government turned down the plan. After this point, a serious debate occurred over whether the new system should consist of elevated lines or of mostly underground lines; this debate involved numerous parties in France, including Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, and the Eiffel Society of Gustave Eiffel, and continued until 1892. 

Eventually the underground option emerged as the preferred solution because of the high cost of buying land for rights-of-way in central Paris required for elevated lines, estimated at 70,000 francs per metre of line for a 20-metre-wide railroad.

More information: Paris by Train

The last remaining hurdle was the city's concern about national interference in its urban rail system. The city commissioned renowned engineer Jean-Baptiste Berlier, who designed Paris' postal network of pneumatic tubes, to design and plan its rail system in the early 1890s.  

The Grandma contemplates a painting in the Métro

Berlier recommended a special track gauge of 1,300 mmto protect the system from national takeover, which inflamed the issue substantially. 

The issue was finally settled when the Minister of Public Works begrudgingly recognized the city's right to build a local system on 22 November 1895, and by the city's secret designing of the trains and tunnels to be too narrow for main-line trains, while adopting standard gauge as a compromise with the state.

On 20 April 1896, Paris adopted the Fulgence Bienvenüe project, which was to serve only the city proper of Paris. Many Parisians worried that extending lines to industrial suburbs would reduce the safety of the city. Paris forbade lines to the inner suburbs and, as a guarantee, Métro trains were to run on the right, as opposed to existing suburban lines, which ran on the left.

More information: The Local

Unlike many other subway systems, such as that of London, this system was designed from the outset as a system of initially nine lines. Such a large project required a private-public arrangement right from the outset, the city would build most of the permanent way, while a private concessionaire company would supply the trains and power stations, and lease the system, each line separately, for initially 39-year leases. 

A Métropolitain banner, Paris

In July 1897, six bidders competed, and The Compagnie Generale de Traction, owned by the Belgian Baron Édouard Empain, won the contract; this company was then immediately reorganized as the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Métropolitain.

Construction began on November 1898. The first line, Porte Maillot–Porte de Vincennes, was inaugurated on 19 July 1900 during the Paris World's Fair. Entrances to stations were designed in Art Nouveau style by Hector Guimard. Eighty-six of his entrances are still in existence.

Bienvenüe's project consisted of 10 lines, which correspond to today's Lines 1 to 9. Construction was so intense that by 1920, despite a few changes from schedule, most lines had been completed. The shield method of construction was rejected in favor of the cut-and-cover method in order to speed up work.

Bienvenüe, a highly regarded engineer, designed a special procedure of building the tunnels to allow the swift repaving of roads, and is credited with a largely swift and relatively uneventful construction through the difficult and heterogeneous soils and rocks.

More information: The Local

Bus routes reach the most obscure corners of Paris. 

There's also the Metro - and especially the great Line No. 1, 

which runs on tires under the Champs-Elysees and beyond. 

Serge Schmemann