La Petite Ceinture du 19ᶱ (accès Thionville)

You are standing at the entrance to a segment of the Petite Ceinture, a historic circular railway that once formed a complete loop around Paris. Built in the middle of the nineteenth century at the direction of Napoleon the Third and his planner Baron Haussmann, the line was designed to solve a logistical headache for the city. At the time, each major train station was owned by a different private company, and they had no interest in connecting their tracks to one another. The Petite Ceinture forced a connection, circling the capital to link these disparate hubs and facilitate the movement of goods and passengers across the city.