Gare d'Austerlitz: station history
Served by: metro lines 5 and 10, RER C.
Did you know?
Served by lines 5 and 10, the station is that of Gare d'Austerlitz, on the left bank of the Seine, in the 13th arrondissement. The railway station was first called gare d'Orléans; its present name recalls Napoleon's victory of 1805. Rebuilt from 1862 to 1867 by Pierre-Louis Renaud, chief architect of the Paris-Orléans company, it houses a metal hall 280 metres long with a 51.25-metre span, the second largest in France after Bordeaux, which served as a gas balloon workshop during the siege of Paris in 1870.
Anecdote
In 1906, line 5 crosses this great hall across its width, as an extension of a viaduct over the Seine: an elevated station was set up in the hall, above the tracks. The station is partly listed as a historic monument, including the gables of the metro exits. Hit by the 1910 flood, which interrupted traffic from 31 January to 9 February, it was the first Paris station without steam trains after the 1926 electrification, and is a location for « Un long dimanche de fiançailles » (A Very Long Engagement, 2004).
Audio guide
An audio guide for this station is available in the Lieux d’Histoire app.
Around Gare d'Austerlitz
- Jardin des Plantes, 450 m away — Founded in 1635 by an edict of Louis XIII as a garden of medicinal plants, it is France's main botanical garden and the seat of the National Museum of Natural History. Buffon, who directed it from 1739 to 1788, roughly doubled its size.
- Gare d'Austerlitz, 20 m away — A historic station opened in 1840, named after Napoleon's famous 1805 victory.
- Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, 450 m away — A scientific institution founded in 1793, home to vast natural science collections.