"The trains always run on time"
That saying makes me think that the person who said it had never actually taken a train anytime of their life. A more apt saying would be, "the trains only run on time when they aren't delayed or cancelled" and in my experience, trains are often delayed and cancelled.
By the way I don't exactly know where I'm going with this post so bare with me as whip together a post about trains, perhaps in a stream of consciousness fashion. I have train photos that I've stored away the past few years and I need to use them.
Chantilly Train
When my sister left from her vacation in France she went on to Amsterdam to visit her friends for a few days. Her train in Chantilly ended up being delayed and then cancelled multiple times to the point that she almost missed her connection in Paris.
I dropped her off that morning and said goodbye and just assumed that everything would work out. I decided to go to a cafe in town for breakfast and by the time I sat down at a table she was texting me to say that the first train never arrived.
We texted back and forth for an hour or so as each new train was scheduled and then promptly cancelled shortly afterwards. I sat at the cafe trying to decide if I needed to go back and pick her up and come up with a new plan. In the end the train did finally arrive. It was about and hour and a half late but my sister was able to make her connection in Paris. It wouldn't be a travel day without some undo stress.
Okay switching gears now. Let me briefly talk about the Gare du Nord train station in Paris.
Gare du Nord
I haven't been to too many train stations across Europe so I'm by no means a good judge of comparison but I actually quite liked the Gare du Nord train station. It seemed to be pretty clean and well kept to me and was very easy to navigate anytime that I went there.
Its housed in a nice building built in the Beaux Art architectural style. Its a style that is common among significant buildings in the city - museums and such. Statues built into the facade out front are named after other Northern French cities. They appear to represent the lines and stops of the station when it was originally built - Amiens, Lille, Arras, Rouen...etc. Outside the station are restaurants and cafés and hotels and the area is actually quite nice when you first step out of the station. I've drank a beer or two and had a few cups of coffee in cafes out front while killing time waiting for a train to take me back home.
The station never felt that busy to me but supposedly it is the busiest train station in all of Europe and the third busiest in the world, the first being a station in Tokyo Japan.
The Gare du Nord currently accommadates around 700 thousands passengers each day and approximately 292 million per year, though many sources vary on those figures.
It is also set to get much bigger in the next few years as Paris is to host the 2024 Olympics. To accommadate the influx of visitors it plans to expand the station to more than double its size.
It is currently 36 thousand square feet with plans of making it 110 thousand square feet Source for above.
Have you been to the Gare du Nord station? What are your thoughts on it? How does it compare to other stations?