page_title: Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture
section_title: Paris before the Petite Ceinture
hierarchical_section_title: Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture / Origins / Paris before the Petite Ceinture
caption_attribution_description: English: Paris in 1859 - its Fortifications, Chemin de fer de (Petite) Ceinture (Paris-Auteuil, Chemin de fer de Ceinture Rive Droite). Français&#160;: Paris en 1859 - ses fortifications, Chemin de fer de la Petite Ceinture (Paris-Auteuil, Chemin de fer de la Ceinture Rive Droite).
context_page_description: Paris' former Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture, also colloquially known as La Petite Ceinture, was a circular railway built as a means to supply the city's fortification walls, and as a means of transporting merchandise and passengers between Paris' major rail-company stations. Beginning as two distinct 'Ceinture Syndicate' freight and 'Paris-Auteuil' passenger lines from 1851, these lines formed an arc that surrounded the northern two thirds of Paris, an arc that would become a full circle of rail around the capital when its third Ceinture Rive Gauche section was built in 1867.
  Although the Syndicate-owned portion of the line was freight-only in its first years, after the creation of a passenger service from 1862, the Chemin de fer de Ceinture became Paris' first metro-like urban transport, and even more so after the 'Ceinture Rive Gauche' passenger-and-freight section began. The line's passenger service was a popular means of public transport until its 1900 Universal Exposition peak-traffic year.
  Paris' first Metro line opened that year: from then, the numbers of those using the Petite Ceinture passenger service dropped steadily until its closure 1934.
context_section_description: Paris was only half its present size in the years of the Ceinture's creation: its limits then were the city's 1784 Fermiers-Généraux tax wall that followed almost exactly today's Métro lines 6 and 2). From 1841, Paris dotted itself with a ring of defences a few kilometres outside these: completed in 1845, the Thiers wall fortifications enclosed land that was mostly countryside, save for a few 'faubourgs' extending for a distance along the roadways from its city gates.
  In that year, Paris had five major rail stations, all located just inside the city tax walls, each run by separate companies: Paris-Rouen (later Ouest, near today's gare Saint-Lazare, Nord (at today's gare du Nord), Paris-Strasbourg (later Est, at today's gare de l'Est), Paris-Lyon (at today's gare de Lyon) and Paris-Orléans (at today's gare d'Austerlitz). Since the rail barons of the time were persuaded that direct connection to a competing line would endanger their control over their respective region monopolies, there was no company inter-station service of any kind: freight and passengers travelling between regions of France had no choice but to commute from station to station by road through the congested capital.
caption: Paris in 1859 - its Fortifications, pre-1860 limits and the Chemin de fer de (Petite) Ceinture (at this date, only the Rive Droite and Paris-Auteuil sections were built)
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