Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Gare

An animated rainy evening scene in the Boulevard Diderot outside the Gare de Lyon in Paris.

Going back over 53 years to my first visit to France for this broadside comparison with the previous post. Between turns on the commuter trains SNCF 141TC 2-8-2 39 lays up in the siding at the platform end at Paris Gare du Nord. Note the hose pipe topping up the sidetanks. Built in 1934 these big ex-Nord 2-8-2 tanks were impressive machines & at this time they were working the very intensive push & pull suburban services smokebox-first out of Paris. All were withdrawn by August 1970 when steam finished in Paris and only one example was preserved.

French commuter steam at Paris Gare du Nord as 141TC39 (ex-ETAT 42.039) departs rapidly northwards. These big 2-8-2 tanks, built by Fives-Lille in 1922, were impressive machines & at this time they were working the very intensive suburban services push & pull, smokebox first, out of Paris. While my then girlfriend had lectures on her year ahead as a French assistant in Verdun I hung around Gare du Nord & Gare de la Bastille taking in the Gallic steam atmosphere. The girlfriend ended up married to a frenchman, steam disappeared & the TGV arrives at these platforms now. C'est la vie!

The beautiful curves of the Art Nouveau iron and glass canopy and Arles stone sculptures of the Gare de Nice-Ville which was opened in 1867 by the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée company (PLM). The canopy is very similar in style to that at the same company's Lyon Gare des Brotteaux.

As part of the commemoration of 150 years of railways in France SNCF organised a steam special from Paris Gare Saint-Lazare to St. Germain en Laye pulled by État 4-6-2 231 G 558. It is seen here beneath the fine trainshed roof by the buffer stops.

SNCF 141TB 2-8-2T 463 departs Paris Gare de la Bastille station with cylinder cocks wide open. Bastille was the terminus of the 54.1 km long line to Vincennes and Verneuil-l'Étang. This was my first visit to Paris or France. No sign of any greenery in those days but today the Promenade Plantée is a major tourist site bustling with walkers who can follow the line eastwards for 4.5km. The station itself is the site of l'Opera de la Bastille. Interestingly when I lived in Paris in the 1980s I told my french co-workers that there had been a station here until 1969 & I was not believed at first! "C'est pas vrai"!!