I'm continuing my journey following the Granville-Paris Express...

Photo courtesy of Pixabay and Wikimedia

 ... and I've finally reached Paris.  This will be my final post in this series.  Read on... 

I’ve reached my final destination on this particular journey, and what an interesting and unusual travelogue this has been.  But I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the posts as much as I have enjoyed the research and the writing.

Although the end for the Granville-Paris express was catastrophic in some respects, for me, the arrival at the last stop is a bitter disappointment.  Read on.

Gare Montparnasse was originally named Gare de l’Ouest and was one of the central termini across the city of Paris.  It was opened in 1840 and was a glowing example of mid-nineteenth century architecture, as old photos demonstrate.  The architect was Louis Visconti, and the original building had footfall of 490,000 passengers annually as early as 1844.

In 1852, a second station was built a little further down the track, which enabled expansion to cope with the ever-increasing traffic, the addition of new lines, and the then fashion for train travel.  The passenger traffic had expanded to 1.4 million by1854 and had become a major hub for the Compagnie chemin-de-fer de l’Ouest.

In 1895, when the travellers on The Paris Express arrived at around four in the afternoon, it would have been the second building that they saw.  We now only have the old photos of those original buildings and, of course, the photo of the crash that was published in newspapers across the world.

Amazingly, there was only one fatality, Marie Aguilard, the newspaper seller whose kiosk was directly below the site of the incident.  She had taken over from her husband temporarily whilst he went to collect the next edition.  Some of the passengers and crew received some minor injuries, and the other passengers waiting for the train were similarly lucky.  Naturally, the damage resulting from the crash was repaired, and the station continued to serve the people of Paris.

The coming of the great exhibition in 1900 brought further expansion and the creation of new routes.  The twentieth century was a key turning point for Paris Montparnasse.  In 1944, the station became a landmark.  On August 25^th, General Leclerc accepted the surrender of General von Choltitz within the confines of the station, and the liberation of Paris began.  Some twenty years later, during the 60s and 70s, the station was reconstructed and integrated into a vast urban project.  In 1969 the old station was demolished, and the Tour Montparnasse was constructed as a memorial and included alongside the vast complex of glass and steel that we now see today.  The new station, designed by Eugéne Beaudouin and Urbain Cassan, now has a footfall of 50 million travellers a year.  That’s a lot of people, and I have to wonder how many of them know what happened on October 22^nd, 1895... 

You can catch up with the previous posts in this series by clicking the following links: Granville part 1, Granville part 2, Vire, Flers, Briouze, Argentan Surdon and Dreux.  My review of the book, The Paris Express, is Here