Internarional Variety

 How Many?

Sounds very slow, maybe a lot of steps? 

Actually, no!

Fortunately, there is an on-line video to corroborate its claim.

Impressive, eh?

If you were paying attention, you might have worked out that the top sets of escalators replace a steep footpath up/down an equally steep hill. This footpath has been turned into a flight of escalators which are not part of the ticketted area. You come to the real entrance about halfway down!

But still impressive? Eat yout heart out, Elizabeth Line line!

Big Paris Rebuild? Or Maybe Not!

The above picture leads the news item referred to below.

The headline shouted loud about a rebuild of Paris' ugliest Metro station, namely La Fourche on line 13. Now fbb is not a party to ugliness ratings in the Paris Metro, but La Fourche looks pretty much like any other metro station in the main city area.

The quoted cost of this rebuild is a modest £583.000; which seems cheap for an underground station. As usual with the interwebnet there is a slight tendency to exaggerate, not to get you to read the article, but to lure you into responding to the plethora of adverts that interrupt the "news" every few sentences.

There are two Metro lines that have two destinations at one of their ends. One is in the south east on line 7 (PINK).

The other is one line 13 (PALE BLUE) where the station at the split is inventively named La Fourche, the Fork!

Originally the new line 14 (PURPLE) was intended to take over one of the branches; but later the plans were amended to make the 14 a faster run from busy stops on both legs.

Line 13 was originally owned by a separate company from the majority of Metro lines. It was called (for simplicity) the Nord Sud company. It also benefitted from outstanding originality in naming, as it ran from the North to the South (Sud) of the city.

The intertwined NS logo still appears on many of its stations, plus it has large tiled station names.  It was absorbed by the main player in 1930.

Although the modern line 13 has been substantially extended at both ends, in the city area stations are close together with simple staircase entrances from the street. Below is an old picture of the stairwell at La Fourche.

It stands at the apex of the road junction and you can see tram tracks splitting as well.

The entrance was endowed, typically, with cast iron railings and the company name. And so it remained until, c. 60 years ago, an errant bus collided with and demolished those art deco railings.

As we look at the same site today ...

... the replacement entrance does not replicate the charm of the original.

It is all harsh concrete and out of character with the area and with the philosophy of the Nord Sud company.

So it is just the entrance that is to be rebuilt. Seems quite expensive for a few railings.

The best bit of this line is to be found at St Lazare station ...

... where the passenger circulating area is a true delight.

And that picture which illustrated the original article?

The train is on the Bir Hakeim viaduct which crosses the Seine. It is nowhere near Line 13 or La Fourche station! Here it is on the metro map.

Bir Hakeim station is the stop for La Tour Eiffel.

Krakow Confusion

Sounds very impressive, does it not?

Except that Krakow already has plenty of low floor trams ...

... with only a few of the old sets, with steps up, in service.

Maybe the article should have said, "to replace the remainng high floor stock". But that would not have been so intellectually stimulating as to attract large numbers of readers to the adverts!

South Coast Extension Opening

Even with his encyclopaedic knowledge of lots of stuff, fbb has struggled to unravel this story. 

In the area there are lots of places with English sounding names.

You can find Nemarket, Braintree, Abington, Middlesbrough, Bourne, Kingston, East Weymouth. New Bedford and East Taunton to name just a few. Open up the map wider and there are even more!

But where are we? And what project requires the cutting of the purple ribbon by the assembled dignitaries above.

And the station at New Bedford looks, well, new!

Teasing over: we are in the US state of Massachusets where, you may remember, you can't chop your mama up.

A former passenger line, long since demoted to freight and ultimately little used, has been re-opened to passengers.

South Station (see upper map) is in Boston and the line is part of the longer distance "Commuter" network.

The service is hardly frequent, but it does offer some very useful travel opportunities on a line bereft of passengers for 65 years!

Well done ...

Next there follows three mini-blogs, augmented by other stuff where appropriate (or even inappropriate!) derived from a photo Album sent by No1 and No3 sons who have just returned from a week's road trip to the US of A.

Guess Where?

 Next 'Riding The Mustang' blog : Tues 1 Apr