Paris's Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture () (Little Belt Railway), colloquially known as La Petite Ceinture (The Little Belt), is a circular railway built from 1852 to 1869 with 40% of underground sections as a means of supplying the city's fortification walls and transporting merchandise, then since 1862 passengers, between the major rail-company stations in Paris. Beginning as two distinct Ceinture Syndicate freight and Paris-Auteuil passenger lines from 1851, they formed an arc surrounding the northern two-thirds of Paris. The arc became a full circle of rail around the capital when its third Ceinture Rive Gauche section was built from 1867.
Although the Syndicate-owned portion of the line was freight-only in its first years, after the creation of passenger service from 14 July 1862, beginning on the north and east section of Clichy-Bercy with underground parts, the Chemin de fer de Ceinture became Paris's first metro-like urban transport—even more so after the Ceinture Rive Gauche passenger-and-freight section began. The line's passenger service was a popular means of public transport until its 1900 Universal Exposition peak-traffic year.
After Paris's first Métro line opened that year, the number of people using the Petite Ceinture's local passenger service dropped steadily until its closure in 1934. Although its freight and main line passenger trains were maintained, even that use of the Petite Ceinture had come to a practical end by the 1990s.
Since then, sections of the Petite Ceinture's trenches and infrastructure have been rehabilitated and renovated for the inter-urban RER C passenger transport service, and some of its former stations have been sold to local commerce and services. The future of the remaining stretches of the Petite Ceinture has always been a source of much debate.
Origins France's first steam-locomotive passenger rail service was its 1837 Paris-Saint-Germain railway that ran to an embarcadère (landing stage) predecessor of today's Gare Saint-Lazare. In the years following, new railways appeared in many regions across the country; but in all, early 19th-century French rail technology expansion was far behind that of its western European rivals. The Louis-Philippe government-monarchy planned to close this gap with its 1842 Legrand Star, a map of pre-programmed railway concessions that made Paris the centre of a spiderweb network of lines reaching to all regions and borders of France. By the end of the decade, the country's rail was governed by five distinct railway companies, each with exclusive monopoly over its respective regions of France.
Paris before the Petite Ceinture
Paris was only half its present size in the years of the Ceinture's creation, its limits being the city's 1784 Fermiers-Généraux tax wall (General Farmers tax wall) that followed today's Métro lines 6 and 2 almost exactly. From 1841, Paris dotted itself with a ring of defences a few kilometres outside these. Completed in 1845, the Thiers wall fortifications enclosed land that was mostly countryside, save for a few faubourgs (city quarters) extending for a distance along the roadways from the city gates.
In that year, Paris had five major rail stations (gares), all located just inside the city tax walls, each run by separate companies: Paris-Rouen (later Ouest, near today's Gare Saint-Lazare; Nord (at today's Gare du Nord); Paris-Strasbourg (later Est, at today's Gare de l'Est); Paris-Lyon (at today's Gare de Lyon); and Paris-Orléans (at today's Gare d'Austerlitz). Because the rail barons of the time were persuaded that direct connection to a competing line would endanger control over their respective regional monopolies, there was no company inter-station service of any kind. Freight and passengers travelling between regions of France had no choice but to commute from station to station by road through the congested capital.
A military idea The idea for Paris's Chemin de Fer de Petite Ceinture originated with its fortifications. Rail transport was still relatively new when Paris's city fortifications were completed in 1845; and France's generals viewed the new technology as a means to quickly move troops, machinery, ammunition, and provisions between points along the circular wall. An initial 1842 study resulted in three projects for railways to the inside the fortifications, another between the forts outside, and another ring in a still larger diameter outside the city. By 1845, however, the government's increasingly urgent priority was to join the nation's railways through a Rive Droite (Right Bank) portion of the inner-fortification rails.
Because the government of the time was too financially burdened to undertake building and managing a railway on its own, it depended on France's major rail companies for financial support and management. The post-1848-revolution government was in no better position to negotiate, and all that the Second Republic government's coercive manoeuvring managed to achieve was that the rail companies made freight-exchange deals and mergers amongst themselves.
One Ring, Three Lines I - Syndicated Chemin de Fer de Ceinture (Rive Droite) Napoleon III's coup d'état on 2 December 1851 led to creation of a new government with more grandiose visions for France's railway future. Re-opening the negotiations based on a pre-Second Empire project to connect all of Paris's railway stations through an arc of rail between the Rouen-Versailles Rive Droite (Gare-St-Lazare) and Orléans (Gare d'Austerlitz) lines—with the Versailles Rive Gauche lines (leading to today's Gare Montparnasse) joined to its Versailles-Rive Droite counterpart through a junction at Viroflay (in the suburbs to the south-west of Paris)—the Rouen, Nord, Strasbourg, Orléans (then bankrupt but state-sponsored) and Lyon companies signed participation, and the project was transformed into a decree-proposition signed into law by the Prince-President on 10 December 1851.
In this agreement, against a 1 million franc contribution from each company, the government would organise and finance the landscaping, bridges, and rails for the line, to be completed no later than two years from the concession signing. Once completed, it would be placed at the disposal of a compagnie de Chemin de fer de Ceinture de Paris (Paris Ceinture Railway Company)—not yet Rive Droite,a syndicate comprising two members of each company—for a period of 99 years, during which they would provide a service 'for freight and passengers' using rolling stock from each company.
The first stretch of rail connecting Parisian stations to be built was not part of the Ceinture concession, but originating from an earlier inter-company deal that had become a separate concession of its own, an arc of rail between the Nord and Strasbourg (later: Est) lines. Open in April 1852, it would be connected to the Ceinture upon completion. The first length of the Ceinture railway was completed 12 December 1852 between Rouen's Batignolles freight yards and the Pont du Nord, a point above the Nord company rails south of its station in Paris. The second Ceinture section delivered, between Pont du Nord and Aubervilliers (the point where the Nord-Strasbourg arc-connection joined with the Ceinture railway), was opened to service on 30 September 1853. From there, trains could travel freely between the Batignolles (Rouen), La Chapelle (Nord), and La Villette (Strasbourg-Est) freight yards. Construction of the line between the Pont du Nord and Ivry (the Rive Gauche Orléans company freight yard), as it undercut the hills of Montmartre and Belleville, was more problematic, as several landslides delayed the work. But it was delivered in one track from December 1853; freight service began from 25 March; and it was fully functional after its second rail was delivered in May 1854.
II - Ouest Company's Paris–Auteuil passenger line
The Pereire-owned Ouest company requested and obtained the government railway concession that 'extended the ceinture railway through Batignolles and Auteuil' in 1852. This line was planned as passenger-only service created mainly for the Parisian bourgeoisie travelling to their country homes south-west of the city, and had nothing to do with the freight-only Ceinture line, although the government indicated in the concession agreement that the line was to be 'an extension of the Chemin de fer de Ceinture'. Leaving the Gare Saint-Lazare rails just to the north of the station, the Paris–Auteuil line arced west, passed through the town of Batignolles, then followed the interior of Paris fortifications to the south with several stops before its terminus in the town of Auteuil.
In an effort to avoid blocking traffic as the Ceinture Rive Droite did, the Auteuil passenger line was built below ground level for most of its 9.5-km (5.9-mi) length, an endeavour that required construction of 14 bridges across its entrenched path. Besides its Rue St-Lazare embarcadère terminus, also serving the Ouest company's other lines, the line had five stations: Pont-Cardinet (an SNCF station today); Courcelles (today's Pereire–Levallois RER C station); Neully–Porte Maillot; Avenue de l'Impératrice (Avenue Foch); Passy (Avenue Henri-Martin); and Auteuil (unused today). The Paris–Auteuil passenger line was inaugurated on 2 May 1854.
III - Ouest Company's Chemin de Fer de Ceinture Rive Gauche
From 1852, the state had non-officially continued its own plan-study for the Rive Gauche arc of rail to complete its original fortification-provision goals, and from 1857 this became an official pre-project that Napoleon III declared 'of public interest' in 1861. But as all the Syndicate lines were already connected, it saw no commercial interest in this. The state had begun procuring the funds necessary to purchase land and lay rail for the line even before Napoleon III's declaration, and from 1863 had begun the landscaping and bridge work required for a chemin de fer de Ceinture Rive Gauche. The bridges were needed because, unlike the Rive Droite Ceinture line, the Rive Gauche would pass over and under streets, over bridges, below underpasses, and through tunnels.
During the above, Paris had doubled in size, as Paris annexed all the 'country communes' between its city tax walls and fortifications from 1860, which put the formerly countryside Ceinture line within the new city limits. Providing passenger service for these 'new arrondissements' (Parisian administrative districts) became yet another state goal, as also the need for railway transport to the upcoming 1867 International Exposition that would bring crowds of visitors to the Left Bank's Champ de Mars (Field of Mars).
In earlier state-rail-company negotiations, the state had obtained the option to buy the Auteuil line back from the Ouest company, and used this as leverage to get the company to agree to sign a Ceinture Rive Gauche concession convention on 31 May 1865. By this agreement, the state would return the Auteuil-line concession to Ouest, complete the already-underway landscaping and bridges needed for the line, and work an 'eventual' additional concession for a rail connection between its Auteuil line and the Ceinture Rive Droite at Batignolles. All the same, the state reserved an eight-year delay during which it would have the right to purchase some or all the concession in case ongoing plans for a 'métropolitan' railway line went through. Ouest, for its part of the agreement, would lay the rail; provide all the buildings; execute and maintain rail service; and, for the Exposition, lay a 'temporary' antenna from its Grenelle station north to the Champ de Mars and make the required modifications to its Auteuil line to allow it to be used by freight trains.