– 1900
The
underground trains of Paris—in other words, the subway—opened for
the first time on this date in 1900.
The
first line that opened provided transport to the 1900 summer Olympic
Games at the Bois de Vincennes. Parisians immediately loved the
Metro—and thirty thousand tickets were sold on the first day alone!
That
first year, 17 million passengers used the Metro—even though the
subway “system” consisted of only one line.
Nowadays, there are
fourteen lines, and more than four million passengers ride the trains
EVERY DAY! That comes up to a grand total of more than 1.47 BILLION
per year! That makes the Paris Metro the second busiest subway system
in Europe.
(Want to guess the #1 busiest in Europe? How about the
busiest in the world? Answers at the bottom of the post.)
One
of the system's stations, Chatelet-Les Halles, which has five Metro
lines and three RER commuter rail lines, is the world's largest Metro
station.
The
Metro is known for its Art Nouveau entrances.
How
do you build train tracks BELOW a city?
Most
of the underground lines were laid under already-existing streets.
The soil of Paris is not conducive to deep digging, so most of the
lines are not that far below the surface, and they were created with
what is called the “cut-and-cover” method. This involved digging
a deep trench along a main street. (In order to keep traffic to a
minimum, this was often done one small section at a time.) The trench
was lined with brick or concrete, and then given a roof of strong
steel girders. Then the trench section was covered with road,
sidewalk, or whatever..and the construction area was moved down to
the end of the section just built. This cut-and-cover method of
tunnel building is quite inexpensive and therefore often used today.
There
are exceptions to the shallow-tunnel generalization, including
tunnels that go underneath Paris's river, the Seine. Metallic
caissons from 20 to 40 meters long were assembled on the bank of the
river and then gradually driven into the river bed, apparently
providing an interesting spectacle for passersby. (A caisson is a
large watertight chamber that is open at the bottom, used during
construction work done under water. The water is kept out by air
pressure.) In order bore the tunnel, the ground was frozen
(extra-super-duper frozen, at minus 24 degrees Celsius!) using
calcium chloride brine.
To
learn how some subway tunnels are built these days, check out the
Washington Post's infographic.
ANSWERS to questions above:
The busiest subway system in Europe is Moscow, Russia, and the
busiest in the world is in Tokyo, Japan. Paris's Metro is only #8 in
the world, behind: Toyko, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Moscow; Beijing,
China; Shanghai, China; Guangzhou, China; New York City, U.S.
Also
on this date:
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