Abandoned Places V: La Petite Ceinture Gare de l’Orléans-Ceinture (Bercy)

I have been rather busy of late, working on my MA and kick starting this photography thing and finding various freelance jobs that I could do to support myself longer living in Paris. As such I have opened a DA account here. In doing so I have started to learn the basics of photo editing to give my pictures a bit of extra oomph, so even though the pics there are the same as here, they are in fact better version. Subtle but necessary. But for now I give you another piece of the railway puzzle.

The hunt for this bit all started with a photo on instagram of a bridge I was dying to see, the only problem was it gave no indication as to which part of the railway it was actually on and so the search was on to find it. Crawling along Paris on google earth and maps, comparing what I saw with what I could see in the background of the photo, I narrowed it down to two places, here and somewhere else. It wasn't here, but it was not a wasted trip, I always enjoy uncovering a new part of the railway.

It turned out that a lot of the tracks were being ripped up to make way for new buildings, something that I find rather sad, though as my friend keeps reminding me- these places are transient and I need to make the most of it whilst it still exists. We do our best! 

I have a feeling that people don't come down here as much as the other parts, true it is much shorter than the other parts and there are no extra draws like entrances to the catacombs... But there was a lot of uprooted tracks, signal posts and other gear.

The truncated railway is shown above, alone with the signal point which I climbed up for no real reason other than I could. We also saw a little pink panther on our travels.

The best bit however was probably the rail station itself. Though getting in was not an option (it bordered an active construction site), I still enjoyed walking around it and taking a few pics. I also had a very difficult conversation with a local, my substandard French was met with his awkward English and in the end we just laughed and gave up.

I would imagine that this station is on the brink of destruction, though this is not as sad as finding out that the one by where I live is being flattened. Having spent many hours down there I know I will mourn its death.

The next part on the hit list is Pont de Flandre and the elusive cage-esque bridge.