Paris Metro

I first travelled on the Paris Metro in September 1952, during my time studying for a degree in Modern Languages (French and Italian). At that time, the majority of the lines still used the Classic Sprague-Thomson rolling stock, based on a design first introduced in the early years of the Metro at the beginning of the twentieth century. (The first ‘modern’ trains, designed after the end of the Second World War, were introduced only in February 1952, on line 13, now (after extensions) Chatillon-Montrouge to Gabriel Peri and St.Denis Basilique.)

For many years I wanted to make working scale models of these unique trains, but information was lacking apart from a few photographs taken at the Paris Transport Museum in 1989 and a postcard cut-out model, to approximately 2mm scale, purchased from the museum at the same time. Valuable information on the Sprague-Thomson stock, and indeed on the whole of the Metro system and its history, were obtained from Brian Hardy’s Paris Metro Handbook (1988, Capital Transport Publishing, ISBN 185414 104 X – later revised editions are available). I attempted to prepare some drawings, but I was dissatisfied with the results and no models were made.

More recently I was able to collect much more information including many photographs by using the Internet, and in 2009 I at last felt able to attempt some representational models – not however made of card or plastic (like my earlier British rolling stock models) but as virtual 3D models for TRS2004.

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