Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame: station history
Served by: RER B and C.
Did you know?
A station on RER lines B and C, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The RER C station opened in 1900 under the name Pont Saint-Michel, put into service by the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans. The line was initially to stop at Austerlitz station, in a poorly served district; its extension to Orsay station, for the 1900 Exposition universelle, led to the creation of an intermediate station at place Saint-Michel. A connection with metro line 4 was put in place from 1910, long-distance trains stopped passing through the station in 1939, and it became an RER C station in 1979.
Anecdote
The station is built under the Seine embankments, almost at river level. Openings in the wall originally lit it, but they were filled in after the 1910 Seine flood; the 2022-2023 works notably plan to reopen 28 of them. The present name dates from 1988, when the RER B platforms opened, whose entrances lie between the Notre-Dame forecourt and boulevard Saint-Germain, while those of RER C run along quai Saint-Michel. The Cluny - La Sorbonne station on line 10 was reopened the same year.
Around Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame
- Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, 350 m away — Reopened for worship in 2024 after the 2019 fire and five years of spectacular restoration.