The "petite ceinture" of Paris (by kerouac2)

[Deleted]

The petite ceinture ("little belt") is something that intrigues all of us who live in the outer arrondissements of Paris because we see little pieces of it almost every day as we go about our business. People who live or stay in the centre barely know that it exists and are often surprised when they see it. "I didn't know that it was still there!"

It is a circular rail line that was built between 1852 and 1869, 32 kilometres long. It was first used only for freight but was opened to passenger traffic in 1867. Even though some of the old train stations have been torn down, quite a few of them are still left and sometimes have surprising uses. Anyway, due to the popularity of the metro, passenger traffic ended on almost all of the line in 1934. Most of the abandoned line is in a deep trench, which partially explains why it was ignored rather than just ripped up and built over. The main reason if the usual one, however -- the SNCF (French national railways) jealously guards every single scrap of real estate that it owns "just in case" and when a transaction is made to take over some SNCF land, it costs a king's ransom.

You could still see freight trains on parts of the petite ceinture until the beginning of the 1990's. Even though I regularly saw these trains when I lived in the 19th arrondissement, I never really found the answer to my question "what on earth kind of freight can they be transporting through the middle of Paris?"

As the old line crumbles, it becomes more and more interesting, so obviously now there are a number of projects for it. We'll get to those later, but first of all I just wanted to follow the line as best as I could for a section of its itinerary. I wasn't quite sure where I should begin, but since I was already on the metro line to Porte d'Orléans, I decided to start there. I wasn't sure exactly where the line was in that part of Paris, but I got off one stop early at Alésia and immediately spotted it on the area map of the immediate neighbourhood.

A couple of blocks later, I got my first glimpse.



It was along this street, but something else intrigued me.



There was a community garden the entire length of the street, but it was only two metres wide, including the walkway!







Some of the plants were reaching out to invade the street.



Some people made sure they had complete equipment.





The flower fans and the vegetable fans live in harmony.





Someone actually managed to grow capiscum, which is almost impossible in the Paris climate.



Okay, back to the rail line... and its wild jungle.

[Deleted]

The old access steps are sealed off, of course.



However, there were plenty of holes in the fence and I even saw somebody going through one. No photo, though.







People living above this lush greenery must really appreciate it.









Curses! I was suddenly blocked from following the line.



I was able to spot it crossing a bridge, but I couldn't get close to it.



This huge construction project clearly showed a long green garden in its plans.



But the old line is actually underground here. The long green garden will be on top of it.



The line is somewhere alongside that building in the distance.



When I got to this point, I was pretty sure that it was in a tunnel beneath my feet.





It looked as though the jungle had decided to climb the buildings in the meantime.

Ah, here is an old station "Ouest Ceinture" which actually only closed in 1986. That's because although it used to serve the circular line, it was also on the line going out of Gare Montparnasse which crossed it. It was killed by the construction of the TGV line going west out of Paris which needed its track space. Anyway, it no longer had very many passengers.

[Deleted]

Since the Montparnasse rail lines are massive, I had no alternative but to hike over to Boulevard Brune to go under.



I found the rails on the other side, but I still couldn't get to them.





one more bridge to cross



I had to enter to Parc Georges Brassens to continue.



Most of it is not very pretty, but it is green. It used to be the central abattoir for Paris.



Under the remaining slaughter hangars, the Sunday book market takes place.





The park does have a vineyard at least.







The petite ceinture runs parallel to the park over there. There must have been a lot of meat trains.





Somebody (who?) has access for kitchen gardens.



And then I reached my goal, the first section of the NEW promenade plantée that opened this month.

[Deleted]

The new promenade plantée starts right at the end of this tunnel.







The tracks have been kept for historical reasons.



The wildflowers have clearly received some assistance from the municipal seed supplies. Wild poppies would never be blooming in September.





Only 2 weeks after opening, it rather lacks character at the moment.



Here is another of the old stations. There are undefined plans to use them.





The cross streets are identified as you pass over them.

These are young elm trees. The sign explains that they are hybrid cultivars of the few survivors of the Dutch elm disease. The elm tree was the most common tree in Paris in the 17th century. There were over 30,000 in the city before the 1970's and all but about 1000 of them died. The new elms are commercialised under the name of Lutèce and have been planted since the year 2002 after twenty years of tests in the Bois de Vincennes. Meanwhile, the scourge of Dutch elm disease is still working its way west across the United States and Canada.

railroad ties made into a bench



Some of the bordering buildings are architecturally grim, but oh what windows!



The open part of the promenade is only 1300 metres for the moment...





New sections will be opening in a few weeks.



There's a ramp to go down to rue Desnouettes besides the lift that is also there.

I will take some pictures of other sections of the old rail lines and post them soon. Here is the map of the whole circuit. The green areas will be turned into promenades sooner or later. The orange areas might be used by tramways or another light rail system. The SNCF is keeping the purple areas for its freight and other mysterious needs.

[bjd]

I didn't know that there was a new Promenade Plantée in the works. In the 15th?

A few years ago when I was looking for an apartment, I visited one in the 20th overlooking that disused railway line. I didn't mind the line, but just across from the apartment were huge, warehouses which looked pretty dingy.

I was under the impression that they were going to make bike paths on these lines?

[Deleted]

Oh, and as for the gap in the circle, it's because the bridge across the Seine was torn down in 1962.

[Deleted]

Sept 18, 2013 10:49:45 GMT bjd said:

I was under the impression that they were going to make bike paths on these lines?

I passed a few cyclists during my walk and one of them told me that they were disconcerted by the lack of an official bike track. "I suppose bikes are tolerated," he said, "but we just don't know." In any case, at the end where I started on the promenade plantée -- rue Olivier de Serres -- the only way to get a bike out was to use the lift.

[fumobici]

How cool, bit of a pity it can't be made completely circumnavigable. The tunnel portions might be a but creepy though.

[Deleted]

I was reading that the tunnel right where the promenade starts (known as the 'Porte de Vanves' tunnel) is home to the largest bat population in Paris with more than 1500 of them.

[mossie]

I became interested in this when I found the tunnel under parc des Buttes Chaumont. That emerges in the 20th by the parc de Belleville and is a good kilometre long. I believe it was also built to be part of the defences of the city to enable troops to be rushed to threatened areas as it roughly follows the line of the old city wall, now the present Periphique. When the tram system was first envisaged it was considered as the basis for that, I wonder why they dropped the idea.

[tod2]

You deserve a mega thank you for revealing this wonderful walk Kerouac! Those of us who thirst for new and unusual ways to enjoy Paris will be straining at the leash to follow in your footsteps!
Keep discovering and giving us wonderful enjoyment!!

[Deleted]

The SNCF is keeping the purple areas for its freight and other mysterious needs.

I should have mentioned that the #2 purple section on the left is actually part of the RER system now on line C. It crosses the Seine on a new bridge and then runs along the Seine to go to the Eiffel Tower, Musée d'Orsay, Saint Michel and Gare d'Austerlitz.

[Deleted]

I decided to look for some clearer maps of how the "PC" used to be and what is left of it now.

Here it is in 1921.



Here it is in 2000.

(No need to mourn the big missing western chunk because most of it is what is back in service as part of the RER C.)

And so today, I decided to continue my investigations. Please don't hate me for doing my research out of order, but it just suddenly springs to mind when I am somewhere in Paris and I can hear the petite ceinture calling out to me. And that happened to me today when I was in the 12th and 13th arrondissements.

I was at the cinema quite close to what I see on the map was called the "Orléans Ceinture" station, which is still there.



It just recently lost a section crossing the Gare d'Austerlitz train tracks.



I decided to stay in the 13th arrondissement for a start and follow it west.



The tracks being completely gone, I don't know what they are doing. But they are clearly keeping the station.



Oddly, a bridge for the PC going in that direction has been rebuilt.



I couldn't see much, but I followed the street parallel to the tracks.



When I got a clear view, the track was all gone. (So why rebuild the bridge?)



But going on from there, the track was back again.





Once again, certain people have access for gardening.



The jungle growth always amazes me. This isn't the same latitude as the Amazon, after all.

[htmb]

I am enjoying your exploration of the pc very much.

[lagatta]

Yes, this is wonderful.

Hmm, la Voyageuse de la Petite-Ceinture...

[Deleted]

Oh, I have that somewhere...!

[Deleted]

Unfortunately, as I approached the towers of Chinatown, the petite ceinture disappeared. I think it ran alongside this building.



Just to my right, the SNCF seemed to be operating a freight station without actual trains.



Lots of trucks go down this ramp to a mysterious destination.



But there were no rails coming on a spur line that I could see.



Here is a photo from the net proving that there are major rail lines down under the apartment blocks, though.

However, that was the end of my westward progress for the day. I hopped on the tramway, which runs only one block from the southern section of the PC line and returned to my starting point at Avenue de France. My original intention had been to go east from there, and this whole excursion west was just a temporary sidetrack, although I will get back to the Chinatown area before long -- I know there are major rail sections visible on the other side of it.

Basically, as you go east from Avenue de France, about the first thing you do is to cross the Seine.



Unfortunately, the new university campus appears to have conquered the old rail line, which should be right here.



Everything is almost gone here.



Here's a photo I had taken of the same area as the 2nd photo above, during the tramway line construction.



Just a little farther along, you can see where the line is "supposed to be."





This is looking back towards the university buildings.



At last, I can spot a piece of rail again.



We're getting close to the Seine now.





Vestiges of the old power lines are still on the bridge.



Even here on the bridge, vegetation tries its damnedest to take over the area.





There is still an old freight station on the other side of the river.



Most of the people on the right bank expressway have no idea what they are passing under.

[Deleted]

I was happy to make this discovery. I have been waiting impatiently for a passage between these two areas!



Quite a few abandoned railway constructions here.

And then I arrived at the mystery that has been intriguing for the last few years. These railways cars have been sitting on this line all that time, and on top of that, I have seen that they have electricity and that people are living in them. Even though I had walked through an open gate opened an unlocked gate to get these photos, I was unwilling to go any farther while alone and without any knowledge of a possible alternate escape route

So I went back out on the boulevard.



However, I took this as an official invitation to investigate more thoroughly.





I zoomed in on a window to see that there were even official opening hours.

A man quickly came out to take his drying jeans off the fence (to keep me from stealing them, I suppose, if I were so inclined). He seemed mute and a bit fearful. Then another man came out, looking just a tiny bit official. We greeted each other and I told him that I had long been wondering what on earth this set of rail cars was. "It is an emergency accommodation centre," he said. "And it also serves for rehabilitation of the disenfranchised."

Actually the French word that is used for rehabilitation is reinsertion and the person I was talking to had clearly not been reinserted for very long.

"So it's an official place?" I asked.

"Yes, it's official. We have all the necessary authorisations." He sounded defensive as though he expected me to say that I thought it was disgraceful and I was going to contact the authorities to get them evicted. He said "it's run by a private association with unpaid volunteers," in case I questioned the use of my municipal taxes.

"I think it's great," I said, to reassure him.

"Have a nice afternoon," he said. Frankly, this place is one of the most completely isolated spots that you can find inside the city limits of Paris. It is totally hemmed in by the rail lines of Gare de Lyon and the right bank expressway which turns into the A4 autoroute as it crosses the city limits. And everything else is a mostly abandoned industrial zone, with a few things like the Lafarge cement factory still there. I don't think anybody lives with 500 metres of the place. And that of course shows the same disgraceful NIMBY attitude concerning these places just about anywhere in the Western world. How can people be "reinserted" in such complete isolation?

Well, I wasn't going to solve that problem today, so I continued my trek, after taking one last photo of the site. The graffiti-covered wagons have been recently whitewashed, but I don't expect that it will last very long.

The green fence shows the limit of the rehabilitation zone.





The PC was a dual track line, and the two tracks are still here in this part of town.





Here is a happy resident. I'm sure there are plenty of rats and mice.

[Deleted]

So many people walk the PC in violation of the rules that every now and then there is a real barricade.



This was at the approach of Porte de Charenton and the old "Rue Claude Decaen" station.



The stairs going down at a different angle indicate that the station also served the Gare de Lyon line.



The barricade is to keep people from going back where I was, with dangerous high speed rail lines.



The old station is living a new life now.



The wonderful wilderness of the abandoned rails began again.





There are a couple of pedestrian bridges over the old rails.





The platform on both sides indicates the next station, long gone.



The tracks have moved above street level again.



The steps up to the phantom station are still there.



The line is getting higher and higher.



At Avenue Daumesnil (Porte Dorée), the overpass is really high.

That was all I had time for this time, so I just took the tramway to Porte de Vincennes to get home. But there was a surprise there, because these old bridges get totally filtered out of your brain when you are not looking for them. But at Porte de Vincennes, the line is still heading north... and other urban explorers are clearly at work.

[Deleted]

To show how disorganised I am, a day or two before this excursion, I had been in the 19th arrondissement to check out other aspects of the petite ceinture.

For this little section, I started in the Buttes Chaumont park, from which the PC suddenly erupts. I don't know when this particular section of the PC was built, so it leaves this trench open to spectulation. The park was created out of landfill in 1867 and since the petite ceinture was built between 1852 and 1869, it would seem likely that the PC should have been there first. But in such a case, there would have been no reason for this trench running through part of the park.

It could have easily been covered over to make more park space, no?



Then again, with steam engines and all of the smoke back then, perhaps it was necessary for the tunnels to be as short as possible.



Homeless people live down there at the edge of the park...





Then the line disappears temporarily, somewhere under this stuff.



Wandering down a bit downhill, I found where it came out again.



This allowed me to backtrack to see more. I had to enter private property and see behind some apartment blocks.

Ha ha, I scared those two young men on the tracks when they saw me taking pictures. They had never heard the term "petite ceinture" before I explained it to them. They were flabbergasted that the rails made a complete circle around Paris. In any case, they did not trust me because I looked like some kind of authority, so one of them said to the other "Let's get out of here; this place gives me the creeps." They wanted to be sure to be gone before the police arrived.

Then I went back to where I had seen the line coming out through the building to continue following it.

It was already above street level again.



I could hear homeless people talking behind the vegetation, so I did not crawl up to see more.







Here is where the line crosses Avenue Jean Jaurès.





The next part along rue de l'Ourcq, I have photographed in the past for the graffiti but not for the rail line...

[Deleted]

Parisians take over every empty lot for a couple of years at least, with the blessing of the city.





It is so easy for the rail line to just be in the invisible background a lot of the time.





Luxury apartments are going up all over this neighbourhood next to the canal de l'Ourcq -- but there are still some empty parcels.



The homeless will sleep anywhere that protects them from the rain.





There is still an open footbridge over the canal along the rail line.



At last I can see some of the raised line.





I used to see freight trains crossing this bridge.

[Deleted]

I had arrived at the secret art community of the Passage des Voûtes. Almost nobody else in Paris knows about this place.



It runs from the canal to Place de l'Argonne.































And then I had reached the end of this little oasis.



















And then this section of exploration ended at the old Pont de Flandre train station.

[tod2]

Ah! Now I see where you photographed those unusal flowers/seed heads of Pokeweed! I've got a plant in my garden and didn't know what it was until I got it ID'd on Wellies.
It's of North American origin. Seems to have got to some far distant lands!

I'm loving this walk and following it on my old map of Paris.
I know I have seen the old line somewhere on my trips to Paris but I mus find my photos and try and figure out just where it was.

I hope there is MORE!

[Rob]

Your most amazing photo essay yet!

[mossie]

Very many thanks for this study of the PC, I have often wondered about it and tried exploring a few sections, but you have opened it up completely. The maps also make an interesting study.

[Deleted]

One thing that is quite noticeable is that if you compare the two maps at #12, you can see that many more parts of it were put into tunnels during the 20th century, which is one of the major complications that I have had trying to follow it on parallel streets.

[Deleted]

The promise of a 3750€ trespassing fine was too tantalizing not to give it a go, at last.



Time to visit the Pont de Flandre station closer up!





It's okay to go through the gate, right?







It must be a bit strange to have an apartment facing such an eyesore a site.







Well, the station has definitely seen better days.





Seeing the station from behind on a side street, the building is really of excellent quality.

[Deleted]

I have stuck my arm through so many fences like this one to get pictures!

After seeing what had happened to the rails at the station, I wondered again why such care is taken to rebuild some of the overpasses. This one was only about 150 metres from the station, so there is clearly no imminent intention of running trains along the line in the foreseeable future. My own theory about this is that anybody who wants to do major work affecting the line (such as at this high class industrial park which includes the world headquarters of Club Med) is obliged to rebuild anything they touch (at their own expense) as though it could be used at any moment. This probably saves the SNCF millions of euros.

After that line of parked cars, the situation is confusing due to the new rail construction for "Rosa Parks."







I can never resist taking a photo of this unusual palm-lined Parisian street when I am around here.



The past had to be destroyed here.



Here is a final vestige of 19th century wall, soon to be gone.



But actually I have to go under the Gare de l'Est train tracks here, which is what the PC did as well.



One last look before going to the other side.



Where the street rises over the tramway, I can see the old rails again.





Backtracking a bit along the tram station platform, I can spot where the PC came out from under the other tracks. Small mystery resolved!







I'll have to lose the tracks for about 500 metres because they'll be behind these warehouses.





As the building ends, I can get a glimpse across a secured car park.





When I can get a better look, it is not one of the prettiest sections.





I can hear the sounds of a hidden Roma village -- here is their laundry drying.



I think they live back in this thing whatever it is. I'm not getting any closer.



Here we are at Porte de la Chapelle. The post office if right on top of the petite ceinture.

[fumobici]

This just keeps getting better. I became curious about the PC after seeing glimpses of it in the past and when the internet came along I did some casual research, but this is, I must say, far better, more interesting and comprehensive than anything I found. I imagine most tourists keeping to the center of the city never have any idea this exists and I wonder how many Parisians living in the posher central parts never have given it even a moment's thought. You may once again however be doing inadvertent damage to Paris' tourist reputation as a citadel of sophisticated elegance. What would the pro loco/chamber of commerce types (not coming up with a French equivalent) think?

[Deleted]

Actually, there is an excellent association that defends the petite ceinture (that's where I got my maps), even though their dreams for its future are not very realistic.

Their collection of historical photos is fantastic.

petiteceinture.org