RAILWAY STATIONS Journeys Ends
RAILWAY STATIONS Journeys ends s France is the proud operator of the TGV, the fastest, sleekest train service in Europe, it is curious that the country was such a reluc - Atant and tardy entrant to the railway age. Britain, Germany and Belgium eagerly laid tracks to move the massive payloads of coal and raw materials feeding the Industrial Revolution; France, with its central and provincial governments pressured into inaction by agrarian traditionalists and canal and coastal shipping interests, and without industrialists prepared to foot the bills, lagged behind. The early railway companies laid-out tentative, self-contained networks, each on an artery from Paris. Cross-country travel was hardly served – all rails led to Paris, and Paris alone, albeit to terminii that were as modest as the entrepreneurs’ expectations. By the turn of the 20th century, however, “Never miss an opportunity for a triumphal arch,” seems to have been a guiding principle most of them had been rebuilt at least once to cope with burgeoning traffic. for mid 19th-century French architects. Prime time in this development process was the era of Haussmann, who The Gare du Nord (left) incorporated one well understood the railways’ value to the city. He envisioned local rail links in its stone façade, adding sculptures between all the terminii; that was too disruptive a project for the time, but representing cities it served or hoped to serve, he did ensure clear road connections between them. The Gare de l’Est Covered unloading in the freight among them London and Vienna, Cologne found itself particularly grandly positioned for his traffic patterns, with a yard at the Gare Saint-Lazare and Warsaw.
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