Merger of Paris Métro lines 3bis and 7bis

Merger of Paris Métro lines 3bis and 7bis
Legend
Château-Landon Magenta Louis Blanc Jaurès Bolivar Buttes Chaumont Botzaris Danube Place des Fêtes Pré Saint-Gervais Haxo 1: Voie des fêtes (Holiday line) | 2: Voie Navette (Shuttle Line) sidings Porte des Lilas – Cinema Saint-Fargeau Pelleport Gambetta

Stations on the projected new line.

The merger of Paris Métro line 3^bis and line 7^bis is projected to create a new line of the Paris Métro, from the Château Landon station to the Gambetta station.^[1]

History of the lines 3bis and 7bis

Detailed map of ways on line 7^bis around the Pré Saint-Gervais station and the ghost station Haxo, and on lines 3^bis and 11 around the Porte des Lilas station.

• 18 January 1911 : a new segment Louis Blanc – Pré Saint-Gervais was opened and extended line 7 as its northern branch.
• 27 November 1921 : a new segment Gambetta – Porte des Lilas extended line 3.
• 1921–1939 and 1952–1956 : two rail tunnels were temporarily opened to extend line 7 to Porte des Lilas (via voie navette and voie des Fêtes^[2]) between Porte des Lilas and Pré Saint-Gervais; however in the end the voie des Fêtes was never used and the station called Haxo was never opened to the public (and is thus one of the famous "ghost stations" of the Paris Metro). The voie navette was also closed to passenger traffic and the southern branch of line 7 (later called 7bis) currently terminates in an anticlockwise loop to Pré Saint-Gervais instead of Porte des Lilas.
• 3 December 1967 : due to the very unbalanced traffic between the two branches of line 7, the southern branch Louis Blanc – Pré Saint-Gervais was isolated and became an independent line, the line 7^bis.
• 2 April 1971 : when the line 3 was extended eastward to Gallieni, its previous final segment to the north, Gambetta – Porte des Lilas was isolated and serviced by a short shuttle, the line 3^bis.

The projected new line

Part of Paris Métro map with lines 3^bis and 7^bis merged into a new line.

It would result from the merger of:

• line 3^bis which currently links the Gambetta station (where it branches from line 3) to the Porte des Lilas station, on the south-eastern (South to North) part of the new line;
• line 7^bis which currently performs an anticlockwise loop on its eastern end from the Botzaris station to its terminus in the Pré Saint-Gervais station, via Place des Fêtes station (but avoiding the closed station called Haxo), and would link them to the current western terminus at Louis Blanc station, on the northwestern (East to West) part of the new line.

These two lines would be connected through an existing rail tunnel, la voie navette^[2] (currently used only for very limited technical servicing), between the Porte des Lilas station and the Pré Saint-Gervais station, to which it would be connected from the Place des Fêtes station by a short rail tunnel, la voie des Fêtes^[2] (currently used and blocked by maintenance facilities), possibly by finally opening to the public the ghost station Haxo (but only in one direction) whose surface accesses would first need to be built, and by reopening to the traffic of the secondary station Porte des Lilas – Cinéma.^[3]

The line 7^bis would be also extended one station to the west, to have its terminus in Château Landon (for easing its interconnection with RER E in the Magenta station, which would allow access to the Gare de l'Est and the Gare du Nord via existing pedestrian links). Therefore, the Louis Blanc station would no longer be the western terminus of the line; however, it would require the creation of a new tunnel and extensive works (and thus this extension could be finalized after the opening of the new line). For now, this last segment is used by the existing line 7 connection.

It was originally speculated that the new line would be given the designation of Line 15. However, since the revision of the Grand Paris Express plan, the merged line will likely be given the designation of Line 19.

See also

• Haxo (Paris Métro) – never-used station on the proposed line

References

1. (French) Fusion des lignes 3 bis et 7 bis du métro de Paris on fr.Wikipédia.
2. (French) Voie des Fêtes and voie navette of the Paris Métro on fr.Wikipédia.
3. (French) The station Porte des Lilas – Cinéma (Paris Métro) on fr.Wikipédia.

External links

• (French) Final project of the Schéma directeur de la région Île-de-France (SDRIF), adopted by the regional council of Île-de-France on 25 September 2008, p. 81 (paper version) left column, and p. 138 (paper version) right column. Last viewed on 3 October 2009 (p. 83 and p. 140 on the PDF version).