An unsuspected and very well hidden place is hidden under this famous Parisian station.
It is well known that our capital is full of secret places just waiting to be discovered by the most curious walkers. And it is often the most common places that hide the most unexpected treasures. Did you know, for example, that under the feet of travelers on platforms 4 and 5 of the Gare de l’Est, this famous Parisian station in the 10th arrondissement, hides a whole miniature world of small trains and pocket travelers?
For nearly 70 years, it is behind a door marked n°9, under the Gare de l’Est, that we have discovered hundreds of meters of miniature rails… We could almost believe we are in the cult scene of the film “Harry Potter – At the Sorcerer’s Stone”, this moment when Harry and Hagrid look for the strange platform 9 3/4 of the King Cross station in order to take the “Hogwarts Express”! Concretely, and this is not a joke, to discover this unexpected place, you have to take the Alsace ramp of the station which leads to level – 1 of the underground car park, then ring the famous door n°9.
These are enthusiasts who open the doors to a 400 m² basement that brings together more than 600 meters of miniature tracks grouped into three railway networks, reproductions of railway networks on the H0, 0 and 1m scale. Before our eyes, dozens of miniature trains with incredible details, whether steam or modern locomotives, colorful freight trains, hundreds of points and machines but also pocket travelers waiting on the platforms or in the hills, all made by hand and in an extremely meticulous manner.
This totally atypical place is the incredible work of the members of the French Association of Friends of the Railways (AFAC) who continue to develop and operate these machines mechanically. All these scenes evoke you and immerse you in the atmosphere of real railway lines. Motivated to discover this timeless place hidden in the bowels of the Gare de l’Est?
Free tours are organized every first Saturday of each month, with mandatory reservation on the website reservation.afac-asso.fr, where AFAC members lovingly share their passion for model railroading. Guided tours are also organized by Seine-Saint-Denis Tourisme via the website Exploreparis.com. They only take place once a month and the next ones take place on October 16, November 20 and December 18, 2024 at 2:30 p.m.