Phantom métro stations: a trip into the past

by Marco Chown Oved

Article published on the 2009-07-17 Latest update 2009-07-17 15:42 TU

Sylvain Briant stands in front of a 1930s-era tiled advertisement in the St. Martin phantom station.
(Photo: M Chown Oved)

Whizzing between two stations in the Parisian métro, a darkened platform appears. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but graffiti and a glimpse of a World War II era poster confirm that it is one of Paris's hidden phantom stations, closed for decades and left to fall apart as commuters pass through, none the wiser.

“These stations give us a glimpse into the past,” proclaims métro historian Julien Pepinster as he leads a group of tourists down the darkened steps of the locked entrance. “While many people experience the past by visiting castles and looking at paintings, these things were reserved for the upper crust of society.

"Here in the disused métro stations, we can walk in the steps of regular Parisians from before the war.”

Listen to the programme:

Pepinster, one of the founders of the historical society Ademas, dedicated to the Parisian subway, offers guided tours of the Paris underground to groups on a reservation-only basis.

Along with fellow métro enthusiast Sylvain Briant, they demand dedication before participants are led to the much-anticipated stations. The tours are jokingly named "taking the métro to go nowhere" and are a full three to four hours of intense métro history.

For the price of two métro tickets, Pepinster explains how the network was dug beneath the Seine river (a metal tunnel was built, then sunk in the river bed and buried), why the Place des Fêtes station is hermetically sealed (it doubled as a chemical attack shelter) and why métros roll on the right and inter-city trains roll on the left (to prevent lowly suburbians from integrating their trains into the élite Parisian system).

A tiled advertisement in St. Martin phantom station.
(Photo: M Chown Oved)

The slightly exhausted participants hold out for the final stage of the tour: a visit to one of the half dozen phantom stations scattered around Paris.

"It's the cherry on the cake," Pepinster explained, "but I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I can't tell you where it is in Paris."

For the most part, the phantom stations are the legacy of the Nazi occupation during World War II. War rationing of coal meant that métro service had to be reduced, and eventually hundreds of stations were closed. Following the liberation of Paris, the bus and métro companies were punished for collaborating with the Nazis and merged into the new Parisian transport authority, the RATP.

"With the RATP, the system was integrated so that the buses weren’t in competition with the métro, but complementary to it," Pepinster said. "They redesigned the bus network so that the two systems weren’t running the same routes.

"Of course, it was easy to change bus lines, but the métro couldn’t be moved. So there were some important people in the government who decided that with the buses integrated, some stations wouldn’t be needed anymore and 15 were closed."

Graffiti covers the hallways of St. Martin phantom station.
(Photo: M Chown Oved)

Of those stations, 11 were reopened between 1948 and 1968, two were converted or merged, leaving three stations which were never reopened and one which was opened, but then closed again. To this, add two stations that were never opened at all, for a total of six phantom stations.

Croix-Rouge, Arsenal, Champs-de-Mars and St. Martin are the stations which once serviced pre-war commuters and still retain traces of that era, beneath a thick layer of dust. 

The tour group approaches a staircase on the sidewalk, ringed with the green wrought iron railings characteristic of the original Guimard metro design. It's such a common sight that no one even thinks to look down the stairs until Pepinster pulls out a skeleton key and quickly unlocks the heavy steel doors.

Graffiti betrays the fact that these stations don't go unvisited, but the impression that time has stood still here remains - that is, until a train comes screaming through at full throttle, disturbing the tomb-like silence that otherwise reigns.

An old advertisement.
(Photo: M Chown Oved)

"Perhaps the most intriguing part of these stations is the advertisements: the originals still there from the 1930s," Briant says. "Instead of the flashy back-lit posters we are used to today, here we still have advertisements made from porcelain - an incredible investment of time and money." 

Tours are typically held on Saturday mornings in English or French, and must be booked on the Ademas website ahead of time.