Gare Montparnasse

It is most famous for a few incidents:

• the derailment on October 22, 1895 of the Granville-Paris Express that overran the buffer stop. The engine careened across almost 100 feet (30 meters) of the station concourse, crashed through a two-foot thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 30 feet (10 meters) below where it stood on its nose.

• The old train station is also the place where, on August 25, 1944, the German military governor of Paris, General Von Choltitz, surrendered his garrison to the French General Leclerc after disobeying an insane Adolf Hitler’s direct order to destroy the city.

Today, the station is used for the trains to Brittany, and the TGV to Tours, Bordeaux. There is also a metro station. There is a high-speed travelator on trial.

External link

• Walkway propels Paris metro into future (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3001182.stm), a BBC article on the high-speed travelator.