Gare de l'Est


The Gare de l'Est, officially Paris-Est, is one of the six large SNCF termini in Paris. It is in the 10th arrondissement, not far from the Gare du Nord, facing the Boulevard de Strasbourg, part of the north-south axis of Paris created by Georges-Eugène Haussmann. It is one of the largest and the oldest railway stations in Paris, the western terminus of the Paris–Strasbourg railway and the Paris–Mulhouse railway which then proceeds to Basel, Switzerland.

History

The Gare de l'Est was opened in 1849 by the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer de Paris à Strasbourg under the name "Strasbourg platform" ; an official inauguration with President Louis Napoléon Bonaparte took place the next year. The platform corresponds today with the hall for main-line trains. Designed by architect François Duquesnay, it was renamed the "Gare de l'Est" in 1854, after the expansion of service to Mulhouse.
Renovations followed in 1885 and 1900, part of Haussmann's renovation of Paris. In 1931 it was doubled in size, with the new part of the station built symmetrically with the old part. This transformation changed the surrounding neighbourhood significantly. At the top of the west facade of the Gare de l'Est is a statue by the sculptor Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire, representing the city of Strasbourg, while the east end of the station is crowned by a statue personifying Verdun, by Varenne. These two cities are important destinations serviced by Gare de l'Est. On 4 October 1883, the Gare de l'Est saw the first departure of the Orient Express for Istanbul.
The Gare de l'Est is the terminus of a strategic railway network extending towards the eastern part of France, and it saw large mobilizations of French troops, most notably in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. In the main-line train hall, a monumental painting by Albert Herter, Le Départ des poilus, août 1914 dating from 1926, illustrates the departure of these soldiers for the Western front. The SNCF started LGV Est Européenne services from the Gare de l'Est on 10 June 2007, with TGV and Intercity-Express services to Northeastern France, Luxembourg, Southern Germany and Switzerland. Trains are initially planned to run at 320 km/h, with the potential to run at 350 km/h, cutting travel times by up to 2 hours.

Train services

The following services currently call at Paris-Est:
SeriesRoute
TGVParis-Est - Reims - Rethel - Charleville-Mézières - Sedan
TGVParis-Est - Nancy-Ville - Lunéville - Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Metro services