Gare du Nord

Front of the Gare du Nord.

Gare du Nord as seen from the Thalys platform.

Detail of the main entrance of the Gare du Nord.

Panoramic view of the arrival hall.

Departure board showing typical destinations.

Eurostar, Thalys and TGV trains fill the platforms on a busy Sunday afternoon during the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

The new part with the hall for the RER lines.

The Gare du Nord ("North Station") is one of the six large terminus stations of the SNCF mainline network for Paris, France. It offers connections with several urban transportation lines (Paris Métro and RER). By the number of travellers (around 180 million per year) it is the busiest railway station in Europe and the busiest in the world after Shinjuku and Ikebukuro in Tokyo..^[1]

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

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. 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 of the station were made 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. Twelve more modest statues of northern French cities are arrayed lower on the facade. The sculptors represented are:

• London and Vienna by Jean-Louis-Nicolas 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 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 Eugene-Louis Lequesne
• Douai and Dunkirk by Gustave Crauck
• Cambrai and Saint-Quentin by Auguste Ottin

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 29 :: TGV North, Main Line trains, and the Picard TER
• Platforms 30 to 40 :: Suburban station
• In the basement, platforms 41 to 44 :: RER station

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.

With around 180 million travellers per year,^[2] Gare du Nord is the busiest station in Europe and the third-busiest in the world. The security is assured by the french police, the railways police, as well 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.

Gare du Nord made of Lego, in Niagara Falls, Ontario

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.

Terminal list

SNCF

Services operated by SNCF, Eurostar and Thalys

RER

(See [1])
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.

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.

v • d • e Eurostar services

Legend 0:00 London St Pancras Stratford International To open in 2010 0:15 Ebbsfleet International 0:30 Ashford International Channel Tunnel (GB-FR border) 0:54 Calais-Fréthun 1:20 Lille-Europe FR-BE border 1:51 Brussels-South railway station 2:15 Paris Gare du Nord 2:33 Marne la Vallée-Chessy (Disneyland) 5:40 Avignon Centre (summer only) 6:27 Moûtiers (winter) 6:59 Aime-La Plagne (winter, set down only) 7:17 Bourg Saint Maurice (winter) Times shown are fastest timetabled journey from St Pancras.

See also

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

Notes

External links

• Media related to Gare du Nord at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 48°52′51″N 2°21′19″E / 48.880931°N 2.355323°E / 48.880931; 2.355323

v • d • e Paris rail stations Terminuses Paris Saint Lazare • Paris Nord • Paris Est • Paris Lyon • Paris Bercy • Paris Austerlitz • Paris Montparnasse SNCF stations Pont Cardinet RER stations Line A Charles de Gaulle - Étoile • Auber • Châtelet - Les Halles • Gare de Lyon • Nation Line B Gare du Nord • Châtelet - Les Halles • St-Michel - Notre-Dame • Luxembourg • Port-Royal • Denfert-Rochereau • Cité Universitaire Line C Porte de Clichy • Pereire - Levallois • Neuilly - Porte Maillot • Avenue Foch • Avenue Henri Martin • Boulainvilliers • Avenue du Président Kennedy • Boulevard Victor - Pont du Garigliano • Javel • Champ de Mars - Tour Eiffel • Pont de l'Alma • Invalides • Musée d'Orsay • St-Michel - Notre-Dame • Gare d'Austerlitz • Bibliothèque François Mitterrand Line D Gare du Nord • Châtelet-Les Halles • Gare de Lyon Line E Haussmann-Saint Lazare • Magenta See also: List of stations of the Paris Métro, Tramways in Paris & Transport in Paris. There is also an external interactive map.