Great Western Coffee Shop

May be of interest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-24655733

Edit to correct URL - grahame

Parisian Railways?

Gary Moore song innit? :P

The Tim Traveller, a Youtuber I follow has also made a video about this railway. Recorded in 2020, more than 6 years after the BBC story, I think it's more informative than the BBC one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IovEyB2EYoM

Incidentally, all his other videos are worth a watch too.

If you ask yourself what was similar or different about London in this respect, the obvious point is the central planning. But there were a lot of link lines around London, built jointly, and while some ran passenger trains that's not why they were built. And once the Underground, with its better connectedness, had been built most of those trains withered away. Lines directly linking terminals (mainly London Bridge/Cannon Street/Charing Cross) were a bit different, but even there the linking services largely stopped.

The video does at least pick up on that aspect, but doesn't spot the importance of goods stations. In London this was a major use of these linking lines, as companies had goods stations "out of area" - for example the GWR had one at South Lambeth. I'm not sure how many there were inside Paris, but I came across one last time I was there (2019). It resisted photography, but can be visited by Street View. This was the gare des Gobelins, now called Olympiades, and its access ramp from the southern Petite Ceinture is still there (but neither has track). It was below ground level, and has been slabbed over to build blocks of homes and offices. More of that is now planned, but with the underground area - now various businesses' depots - directed more to servicing shops and other residents' facilities.