TRIVIA: Things you used to see on the Paris Metro that you don't see today

[Beebman]

I was in Paris last weekend .

As with all my more recent visits to the city it was for a specific event (in this case the Japan Expo at Villepinte) but on Sunday morning I spent a couple of hours or so doing a round trip on the Metro and I think it was probably the first time since the mid-2000s that I spent any length of time on the system across different lines. I agree with @Taunton that nothing much has really changed (I too did my first visit to the city in the mid-70s) and one particular thing that took me back was the white light displays on the barriers which say "Prenez votre billet" which felt very nostalgic for me. Likewise the sound of the door-closing warning on the older stock felt very familar from the past. Indeed the only thing which was definitely different was the platform edge doors on Line 4.

I agree with the 'pace' and I covered rather more ground on that little trip than I had expected to. It really was great fun and as soon as I can get the opportunity I'll be back specifically to spend a couple of days riding on the system.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The Paris Visite tickets still are traditional Edmondson-style ones, put through the slot mechanism at the entrance gates.

I thought they'd stopped doing those last year?

 

[Beebman]

I thought they'd stopped doing those last year?

AFAIK they're still available but I think you have to order them in advance? For each of the two days I bought from machines a Mobilis ticket (valid for zones 1-4 as I needed to use the RER out to Villepinte) which is also an Edmonson-style one. I'd prefer to have a Navigo card but they're only available from ticket offices and the ones at Gare du Nord all had long queues, even the ones at the Ligne 5 entrance which seem to be the quietest. If I can return to the city later this year specifically for some Metro travelling I'll try and get one, especially as the top-up machines never had any queues. (I assume the cards themselves aren't sold from machines because of the need to add an ID photo unlike with Oyster?)

 

[SHD]

Much of the stock that was operational in 1976 is now enjoying its reincarnation in the form of tuna cans, to be honest. The sole survivors are MF67 trains on Lines 3, 10 and 12, MP73s on Line 6 (currently being pushed out), and a handful of MP59s on Line 11 which will be gone by the end of this month.

 

[AY1975]

Works trains hauled by repurposed and transformed Sprague motor cars.
Actually running Sprague trainsets. The "heritage" Sprague trainset is still able to move on its own and is used for static exhibitions, but it is no longer allowed to run with passengers inside due to whatever regulation.

Going back even further, though there's probably hardly anyone still alive who can remember them in service, was the wooden M1/MM1 stock used from the opening of the first Metro lines in 1900 until the early 1930s. I believe that there are three M1/MM1 stock cars preserved at the Musée des transports urbains at Chelles, although they are not on the list of vehicles on the museum website: https://amtuir.org/ The site does mention that they also have some vehicles that are in store and not on display, so maybe that is the case with the M1/MM1 cars.

I believe that the MP 51 and MP 55 stock (and maybe also the MP 59 stock) originally operated with guards (albeit AFAIK just one guard per train rather than two per train or even originally one per car as on the Sprague stock) but went over to driver-only operation by the 1960s or 70s. From the archive photos that I've seen, it would appear that the guard or secondman would ride in the front cab with the driver, unlike on the London Underground where the guard would travel in a barricaded-off vestibule or in the rear cab.

I still have some unused 1st class tickets - bad planning!

This video

would appear to suggest that you should still be able to use them as long as they haven't got demagnetised. So on the one hand you will have wasted some of your money because 1st class no longer exists, but on the other hand at least you may still be able to use them as long as the slots for paper tickets on the ticket gates remain in place and in working order.

 

[AY1975]

My mistake - I knew there was a third type with cream 1st class cars but it was the MP59.

The MP59s also had composite trailers, which were (at least originally) painted cream on the first class section and the standard two-tone blue on the rest of the car. As I recall the MP59s (and MF67s) were later repainted in blue & white with just a yellow stripe to denote 1st class as with the MP73s, though.

The 1st class sections in the composite trailers were latterly declassified so you used to see them still with the cream livery on the former 1st class section but with a figure 2 instead of a figure 1 next to the doors. Not sure whether this was done when 1st class was abolished on the Metro, or earlier with the full 1st class car remaining 1st class.

I also don't recall whether the MP59 1st class trailers had a partition between the 1st and 2nd class sections: I would hope so to discourage 2nd class passengers from straying into the 1st class section!

 

[Beebman]

I also don't recall whether the MP59 1st class trailers had a partition between the 1st and 2nd class sections: I would hope so to discourage 2nd class passengers from straying into the 1st class section!

ISTR that there was some sort of partition but it didn't go right up to the ceiling and there was a gap along the top.

 

[AY1975]

Most of the remaining MP59s, MF67s and MP73s received the then new standard RATP livery of jade green & white in the 1990s, but at some point at least one MP73 set, set 6513 I believe, was painted in a sort of hybrid livery, basically jade green & white but with a blue stripe above the windows and across the cab front, blue on the bottom half of the cab door, and a bit of what looked like a yellow snake with red eyes across the bodyside (which I'd say looked as if it could have been done by officialdom or by a graffiti artist), and with the current RATP logo superimposed onto the older one on the cab front.

Does anyone know when this set was outshopped in this special livery, if any more were done or just that one, and if it is still around in that livery or has reverted to the standard jade green & white?

 

[Taunton]

It is surprising, as I noticed there only last week, that the older stock from the onetime first class days, where the interiors have been furnished identically ever since this was abolished, still retain the prefixes from their old times, A for first class, B for second class, AB for the composites, and various other combinations.

 

[AY1975]

One very obvious thing that I don't think has been mentioned is people smoking in stations (and the smell of French cigarettes) which I think was allowed until about the early 1990s when the French government introduced a partial ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, but even after that ban was first introduced it was often ignored both in Metro stations and in other places where it was supposed to apply.

Not sure if Paris Metro trains ever had smoking cars, though, or whether the trains have always been completely non-smoking.

 

[John-H]

One very obvious thing that I don't think has been mentioned is people smoking in stations (and the smell of French cigarettes) which I think was allowed until about the early 1990s when the French government introduced a partial ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, but even after that ban was first introduced it was often ignored both in Metro stations and in other places where it was supposed to apply.

Not sure if Paris Metro trains ever had smoking cars, though, or whether the trains have always been completely non-smoking.

I was on the metro in the early '90s, It was November 1, and there were constant announcements saying roughly " As of today, no smoking in the stations. You! put it out!!"