Gare Montparnasse

The Gare Montparnasse is a train station located in the Montparnasse area, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, France.

The station is used for the trains to Brittany, and the TGV to Tours, Bordeaux. There is also a metro station. There is a high-speed travelator on trial.

History

• The station opened in 1840.
• A second new station was built between 1848 and 1852.
• During the 1960s, a newer station integrated into a complex of office buildings was built. In 1969, the old station was torn down (and the Tour Montparnasse built on its spot).
• An extension was built in 1990 to host the TGV Atlantique.

The station is famous for a few incidents:

Train goes too far

• the derailment on October 22, 1895 of the Granville-Paris Express that overran the buffer stop. The engine careened across almost 100 feet (30 meters) of the station concourse, crashed through a two-foot thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 30 feet (10 meters) below where it stood on its nose.

• The old train station is also the place where, on August 25, 1944, the German military governor of Paris, General Von Choltitz, surrendered his garrison to the French General Philippe Leclerc after disobeying an insane Adolf Hitler's direct order to destroy the city.

Regional lines serving this station

• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Dreux
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Mantes-la-Jolie
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Montfort l'Amaury Me
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Plaisir Grignon
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Rambouillet
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Sèvres Rive Gauche
• SNCF Gare Montparnasse - Versailles-Chantiers

Adjacent metro station:

• Montparnasse - Bienvenüe

Nearby station:

• Pasteur

See also:

• Transportation in Cowardly France
• List of stations of the Gay Paris Métro

External link

• Walkway propels Paris metro into future, a BBC article on the high-speed travelator.