# Teh mfing moneytrain, voie des finances + line 12, paris metro



## dsankt (May 12, 2010)

The small section of line 12 which passes under the Seine is an interesting one because unlike the rest of the system it's constructed of bolted together iron rings which resemble The Tube of London. As we wanted to have a proper look at the tunnel and shoot some photos in it, we decided that hiding until the end of service was better than the usual mid-service dash.





Marshall, sinasnappelsap and I secreted ourselves in a small electrical room filled with humming electrical boxes just off the end of the platforms. We waited and waited for the service to finish, then the empty ghost trains to run past back to the yards or the underground layups where they slept overnight. As some point we fell asleep also, waking around 3am long after last trains. We crept out, checked the platforms for cleaners and ran down the tunnel.





Most of the metro tunnels are flat but in this section we could quite noticeably feel the gradient which would drop us low enough to pass under the river. The tunnel is indeed quite reminiscent of The Underground but with the addition of a comfortable walkway on the side and without the nosy populace getting pissed off and whinging whenever they see somebody having more fun than themselves. We snapped our pics and departed.






Voie Des Finances
As part of the mighty metro binge of january 2009 qx, snaps and I ventured in search of the mysterious Voie des finances (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voie_des_Finances_(métro_de_Paris)) - roughly translated as The Motherfucking Money Train. This short section of tunnel was used up until 1967 to transport money collected from the other stations to a large RATP office. Special trains running on a 60cm gauge track were used. This small tunnel joined the regular system on a short raccord tunnel between lines one and five.








The raccord tunnel where the voie de finances joins the main system.





We bounded down the raccord pictured above, almost ignoring a full size train which under other circumstances would be the highlight of the night. We'd come for the money bitch! Over the fences and into the VDF we leapt hoping to find cute little carts loaded to the brim with loot and crying out for games of money cart derby.






photo: snappel

Unfortunately the VDF was mostly destroyed during the created of line 14 then locked off from the main system by metal mesh. The short section of tunnel pictured above is one of the only parts remaining. There are unfortunately no trains and of course no loot. At least not anymore. How did you think I fund these adventures?


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## diehardlove (May 12, 2010)

nice one dsankt


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## dsankt (May 13, 2010)

Cheers cap'n!


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## night crawler (May 13, 2010)

A very enjoyable report, loved the static train lurking there. Doubt you could do that in London.


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