Trains - France: Books - Paris and Île-the-france

Il y a 50 ans... Paris-Bastille

December 14, 1969... 50 years ago, the Bastille station disappeared. The line to Boissy-Saint-Léger, now operated by the RATP from the new Nation station, became the first regional express network, the RER A. The Reuilly, Bel-Air and Saint-Mandé stations have disappeared from the local landscape, as have the old steam locomotives and their "wagon green" cars that dominated Paris on the famous Daumesnil viaduct. On this wintery December day, 110 years went up in smoke...

This work is the memory of this endearing line, with its popular environment, made up of artisans, small businesses, modest buildings...
The author has brought together numerous images, documents, unpublished plans, highlighting the atmosphere of the stations on the Vincennes line, whose soul resided in its old-fashioned and timeless style, inviting the reader to combine the past with the present.

Please note: This book is very different from "Paris, la ligne de Vincennes", another book by the author, published in 2006. It only deals with the part from Paris-Bastille to Boissy-Saint-Léger on the one hand essentially during the decade of the 1960s, that is to say as this line was 50 years ago when it disappeared on December 13, 1969.
On the other hand, of the approximately 320 images, documents and objects presented, approximately 300 are unpublished iconography! As for the form of the book, it has nothing to do with the previous one. Finally, it presents and emphasizes the environment of the stations and the Bastille line.

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La Chapelle 1846-2013 : Des machines et des hommes

This book tells the long and rich history of the La Chapelle depot, opened in the mid-19th century by the Compagnie du chemin de fer du Nord, at the foot of the Butte Montmartre, and which closed its doors more than a century and a half later.
This depot shone with its know-how applied to steam locomotives, then to speed service thanks to the famous "big wheels". At the controls, the heroes of the steam era: men with faces blackened with soot, devoted to "their" locomotives.

La Chapelle was then converted to modern traction (diesel, electric) for "speed" traffic and the suburbs. It was finally on January 25, 2013 that the Paris depot was officially closed. Ground Control in 2015, then Grand Train in 2016 are the final episodes of its history.
A railway saga immortalized in this work with exceptional iconography, a tribute to a duo specific to the railway: machines and men.

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