Gare Saint Lazare
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The invention of the steam engine and the spread of a railway network are hugely symbolic of the Industrial Revolution. Although rail travel was originally considered to be a novelty, it soon became clear that this was a means of transport that was going to last. The building of railway stations was to change the face of Paris. To this day, there are six major railway stations in the French capital, each servicing a different section of the country.
Haussmann was responsible for building the gare de Lyon in 1855, and the gare du Nord in 1865. He dreamed of linking the train stations together with a railway line, but he had to settle for facilitating access to them by widening the roads that led to them. The Saint Lazare train station was actually the first to be built in Paris in 1837. Today it is the second busiest station in the city. It services Normandy in the west of France and is a major suburban railway hub.
A first phase of extensions to the original station was completed in 1853, the year of Haussmann’s nomination, and a second phase of extensions was carried out in 1867. They were inaugurated by Napoleon III, in the company of the Austrian Emperor and the Russian Tsar during the Universal Exhibition held in Paris that year. The interior of the station building was a model of the considerable technological advances made in the use of iron and glass in recent years and which were also put to good use in the construction of the Les Halles covered market.
The Gare Saint Lazare train station has seen many changes over the years since Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Its size was increased in 1886 and 1889, and it was restored in 1936. In 2012 a new shopping centre was built within its walls, and yet the building retains its monumental appearance and some decorative details that are reminiscent of the glory of the heyday of rail travel. The impressionist painter Claude Monet was fascinated by the station and painted many pictures of it, the most famous of which is on display in the Musée d’Orsay in the 7th arrondissement, itself a former train station which is now a museum of 19th and 20th century artworks.
Haussmann was responsible for building the gare de Lyon in 1855, and the gare du Nord in 1865. He dreamed of linking the train stations together with a railway line, but he had to settle for facilitating access to them by widening the roads that led to them. The Saint Lazare train station was actually the first to be built in Paris in 1837. Today it is the second busiest station in the city. It services Normandy in the west of France and is a major suburban railway hub.
A first phase of extensions to the original station was completed in 1853, the year of Haussmann’s nomination, and a second phase of extensions was carried out in 1867. They were inaugurated by Napoleon III, in the company of the Austrian Emperor and the Russian Tsar during the Universal Exhibition held in Paris that year. The interior of the station building was a model of the considerable technological advances made in the use of iron and glass in recent years and which were also put to good use in the construction of the Les Halles covered market.
The Gare Saint Lazare train station has seen many changes over the years since Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Its size was increased in 1886 and 1889, and it was restored in 1936. In 2012 a new shopping centre was built within its walls, and yet the building retains its monumental appearance and some decorative details that are reminiscent of the glory of the heyday of rail travel. The impressionist painter Claude Monet was fascinated by the station and painted many pictures of it, the most famous of which is on display in the Musée d’Orsay in the 7th arrondissement, itself a former train station which is now a museum of 19th and 20th century artworks.
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