jeudi 1 avril 2010

Paris-like metro station in Sydney, Museum station

I normally never go to Museum station (in Sydney) but after having gone to see films for the French Film Festival I passed through this station many times recently.

I was immediately struck by how "Paris-like" this station was!

I have only been to Paris once and for a very short time but I have memories of photos that I have seen and I'm well acquainted with the curved ceiling and tiled walls...

As far as I know, Museum station is the only station in Sydney which looks like this. St James looks similar but isn't as 'polished' looking.

Almost all the train stations in Sydney are above-ground and outdoors, which is why we don't call it the metro or the subway, but simply 'the train'. Those stations that are underground tend to have an "open plan" feel because of the way the stairs link to them. Most of them have the platform in the middle and 2 sets of tracks on either side, whereas with Museum station and Paris ones, they have the platforms on either side, and the track/s in the middle. It's hard to explain but basically none of them really have this 'enclosed' feeling, except Museum. Some of the newer underground stations may be similar but they are just ugly concrete boxes. They don't have the charm of yesteryear.

The walls of Museum station are covered with charming old black&white magazine/newspaper advertisements from eras gone by but when I took this photo, they had all just been (temporarily) replaced with colourful close-up photos of easter eggs!

For comparison, Paris metro stations:




What I found interesting is that our trains and stations have overhead wires but Paris trains don't. It seems that they are powered from underneath the trains! Also, something curious about Sydney trains is that they are all double-deckered, well actually it's split-level onto 3 levels. There's the entrance level, and an upper and lower deck. I could write more but that's a whole other post! :)

Flickr: Miss Cantankerous, Barmy Bee and Barmy Bee.


Enregistrer un commentaire

Related Posts with Thumbnails