Gare Montparnasse

View of the Gare Montparnasse from the Tour Montparnasse

The interior of the TGV terminal

Granville-Paris Express wreck on 22 October 1895

The Gare Montparnasse is a train station located in the Montparnasse area, in the XVe arrondissement of Paris, France.

The station is used for the trains to West and South West France, and the TGV to Tours, Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes. There is also a metro station. There is a high-speed moving sidewalk on trial.

[edit] History

The station opened in 1840.
A second new station was built between 1848 and 1852.
During the 1960s, a newer station integrated into a complex of office buildings was built. In 1969, the old station was torn down (and the Tour Montparnasse built on its spot).
An extension was built in 1990 to host the TGV Atlantique.

The station is famous for a few incidents:

The derailment on 22 October 1895 of the Granville-Paris Express that overran the buffer stop. The engine careened across almost 30 metres (100 feet) of the station concourse, crashed through a 60-centimetre (24 inches) thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 10 metres (30 feet) below where it stood on its nose. While all of the passengers on board the train survived, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry.

The old train station is also the place where, on 25 August 1944, the German military governor of Paris, General Von Choltitz, surrendered his garrison to the French General Philippe Leclerc after disobeying Adolf Hitler's direct order to destroy the city (see Liberation of Paris).