Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture

Paris's former Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture (French pronunciation: [ʃəmɛ̃ də fɛʁ də pətit sɛ̃tyʁ], 'small(er) belt railway'), also colloquially known as La Petite Ceinture, was a circular railway built as a means to supply the city's fortification walls, and as a means of transporting merchandise and passengers between the major rail-company stations in Paris.

Paris's first Metro line opened that year and, after that, the numbers of people using the Petite Ceinture passenger service dropped steadily until its closure in 1934.

France's first steam-locomotive-driven passenger rail service was its 1837 Paris-Saint-Germain railway that ran to an 'embarcadère' ancestor of today's Gare Saint-Lazare.

[1] In the years following, new railways appeared in many regions across the country, but in all, its early 19th-century rail technology expansion was far behind that of its western European rivals.

The Louis-Philippe government-monarchy planned to close this gap with their 1842 "Legrand Star", a map of pre-programmed railway concessions that made Paris the centre of a spiderweb network of lines reaching to all regions and borders of France.

[3][4] Paris was only half its present size in the years of the Ceinture's creation: its limits then were the city's 1784 Fermiers-Généraux tax wall that followed almost exactly today's Métro lines 6 and 2).

From 1841, Paris dotted itself with a ring of defences a few kilometres outside these: completed in 1845, the Thiers wall fortifications enclosed land that was mostly countryside, save for a few 'faubourgs' extending for a distance along the roadways from its city gates.

Since the rail barons of the time were persuaded that direct connection to a competing line would endanger their control over their respective region monopolies, there was no company inter-station service of any kind: freight and passengers travelling between regions of France had no choice but to commute from station to station by road through the congested capital.

[5] The idea for Paris's Chemin de Fer de Petite Ceinture originated with its fortifications:[6] rail transport was still relatively new when Paris's city fortifications were completed in 1845,[7] and France's Generals saw the new technology as a means to quickly move troops, machinery, ammunition and provisions between points along the circular wall.

[9] Napoleon III's coup d'État on 2 December 1851 led to the creation of a new government with more grandiose visions for France's railway future.

Re-opening the negotiations based on a pre-Second Empire project to connect all of Paris's railway stations through an arc of rail between the Rouen-Versailles Rive Droite (Gare-St-Lazare) and Orléans (Gare d'Austerlitz) lines, with the Versailles Rive Gauche lines (leading to today's Gare Montparnasse) joined to its Versailles-Rive Droite counterpart through a junction at Viroflay (in the suburbs to the southwest of Paris), the Rouen, Nord, Strasbourg, Orléans (then bankrupt, but state-sponsored) and Lyon companies signed participation, and the project was transformed into a decree-proposition that the Prince-President signed into law on 10 December 1851.

[10] In this agreement, against a 1,000,000 Franc contribution from each company, the government would organise and finance the landscaping, bridges and rails for the line, to be completed no later than two years from the concession signing.

The construction of the line between the Pont du Nord and Ivry (the Rive Gauche Orléans company freight yard), as it undercut the hills of Montmartre and Belleville, was more problematic: several landslides delayed the work there, but it was delivered in one track from December 1853,[15] freight service began from 25 March,[16] and was fully functional after its second rail was delivered in May 1854.

In an effort to avoid blocking traffic (like the Ceinture Rive Droite did), it was built below ground level for most of its 9.5 km length, an endeavour that required the construction of 14 bridges across its entrenched path.

[21] From 1852 the state had continued, non-officially, their own plan-study for the Left Bank arc of rail that would complete their original fortification-provision goals, and from 1857 this became an official pre-project that Napoleon III declared 'of public interest' in 1861.

Providing a passenger service for these 'new arrondissements' became yet another State goal, as was the need for railway transport to the upcoming 1867 International Exposition that would bring crowds of visitors to the Left Bank Champ de Mars.

[25] The Ouest company, on their side of the agreement, would lay the rail, provide all the buildings, and execute and maintain rail service; for the Exposition, the Ouest agreed to lay a 'temporary' antenna from its 'Grenelle' station north to the Champ de Mars, and make the required modifications to their Auteuil line that would allow it to be used by freight trains.

[30] The Ceinture Rive Droite concession agreement stipulated that the railway should have a passenger service, but the companies were content with their freight-only line.

[citation needed] Replacing the Nord company engines, the Ceinture Syndicate bought and ran its own 040 T locomotives from 1869, which were stored and maintained in new hangars near the Chapelle-Saint-Denis freight yards.

After the conflict's end, at first only in sections with trains every hour, Ceinture service returned to its half-hour cadence, begun just before the war, from 16 July 1871.

[42] The Paris-Vincennes line added a second arc of rail to the first one at Bel-Air that allowed trains to travel to and from Bastille in both directions from 1878, and the Ouest company rebuilt a new antenna to the Champ de Mars (replacing the one dismantled in 1869), but this time permanently as the head of a still-unauthorised 'Paris-Moulineaux' suburban railway line that was to have its terminus at the Pont de l'Alma.

In exchange for its participation, the Ouest offered its Ceinture Rive Gauche and Courcelles bifurcation concessions, but demanded that its Paris-Auteuil line be exempt from it: this agreement was approved by decree on 11 November 1881, and effective from April 1883.

The Syndicate's shifting its freight transport to the Grande Ceinture made remedying this problem possible, and from 1886, with service reduced to one rail in many places, City engineers and Ceinture Syndicate workers built bridges, dug trenches, re-landscaped, and rebuilt stations, all in time for the 1889 universal exposition.

To accommodate this change, the Ceinture Syndicate modified their ticketing, signage and colour-coding to more easily differentiate trains and their destinations.

[citation needed] The Ouest company, in light of the upcoming 1900 Universal Exposition, was granted a concession on 6 July 1896 to extend its Moulineaux line from its Champ de Mars terminus to a new 'Invalides' station;[56] the Ouest not only extended its line, but lowered its river-hugging length into a trench to eliminate its railway crossings at every bridge and added four new, minuscule, Chinese-pagoda-esque stations: travelling from the Ceinture inwards, one passed 'pont Mirabeau' (later 'Javel'), 'pont de Grenelle', 'de la Bourdonnais' and 'pont de l’Alma' before reaching the 'Invalides' terminus.

[57] Several other improvements as the 1900 Universal Exposition approached: a temporary 'Claude Decaen' stop (that would become permanent from 1906) to serve Exposition installations in the Parc de Vincennes,[58] new Ceinture Syndicate cars and engines (more Nord-built 030Ts),[59] electric lighting for all 186 cars,[60] and the Champ de Mars station was modified with, in addition to its platforms serving for trains continuing to Invalides, twenty platforms as a terminus for trains from all destinations.

[65] The Ceinture Syndicate was already preparing to meet future competition through lowering passenger ticket prices and increasing the tempo of their trains during rush-hour periods.

[66] The Ouest company, perhaps already predicting the inevitable, withdrew its engines and cars from Ceinture circulation after its 'Boulainvilliers' service began from 1901;[66] the Ceinture Syndicate replaced these with material of its own and adjusted its train schedules to fill in the slack: fifteen new passenger-train engines, Nord 230Ts, arriving between 1902 and 1903,[67] reduced the time it took for a full-circle trip by ten minutes.

Passenger and freight services from both stations are hauled by engines from the SNCF depots at La Chapelle and Pantin, seldom exchanging rolling stock.

Access to the unused rail tracks was partially forbidden, but enthusiasts explored it nonetheless, describing it as a quiet, natural garden space within Paris.