(traffic buzzes) Morning.
Morning.
Bonjour.
Bonjour. It's Tim.
It's Sunday.
What's that in French?
Dimanche.
Dimanche, the 21st of November.
It's slightly grey. It's slightly drizzling.
I've come to Paris to meet Mr. Tim Traveller,
and we're by Gard de ...
Javel.
It's an RER station,
though we've just arrived on the Metro station.
I'm excited to say we're doing the least used station
on the Paris Metro.
(speaking in French)
So the least used the Metro station in Paris is...
Eglise d'Auteuil.
Eglise d'Auteuil, which is on line 10 of the Paris Metro.
(speaking in French)
which you've described
as the Bakerloo line of the Paris Metro.
It is, yeah I love that.
And there's a little loop of track.
And before we go to the Least Used station,
we need to go to a place called, Mira, Miraboo?
Mirabeau
Mirabeau. It's right here.
Which is,
well you have to see it,
to understand why we need to see it first,
look at the rain.
So this is a little plaque
telling you about this kind of Metro entrance,
which is called the "Bouche de Metro Guimard",
it's the Guimard entrance,
which dates to 1900,
right at the beginning of the Metro.
And he was an art nouveau architect,
and he was given the job
of designing these beautiful entrances.
Now the least used Metro station in France
is on this little loop of track,
which we'll discuss in a minute.
But if you don't know,
the reason why we've come to-
Mirabeau. Mirabeau first,
thank you, is because of this incredible feature here,
which you must see.
Tim, would you like to explain
what the heck is going on here?
We have a platform on one side,
and on the other side
train goes straight through,
and up towards Eglise d'Auteuil.
So hang on, so the track nearest to us,
the trains are going which way?
They're going into Paris.
Yes.
And the ones going out of Paris
zoom straight to the station,
don't stop here.
Straight up the hill.
So the least used station is up that hill?
Just round that corner.
But it doesn't stop here?
No.
I think what we should do,
we're going to walk from Mirabeau to least used ,
but seeing as we're here now,
we might as well get the eastbound back,
to Jav, Javier, is it?
Javel.
Javel, sorry.
And then we'll come through-
And then come through here,
get the shot of us passing through-
Yep.
And then arrive at Metro's least used station.
Excellent.
(doors clunking)
(doors whoosh and clunk)
So I'll just explain the loop quickly.
'Cause I'll throw up a map on screen,
this part of the Metro,
and the reason you just saw that strange thing,
at Mirabeau just now.
There's this sort of strange, singular anti-clockwise loop.
I sent a text to my friend Louis
"Hey Louis."
And he then gave me like a bit of a potted history,
"The specifications for the Metro, of the City of Paris,
stipulated that no street in the city
should be more than 500 metres from a Metro station."
But when they did the city,
they had to take care, not to weaken, you know,
the foundations of the church, that it's named after.
So it was also because of that rule.
So basically because of cost effectiveness,
they decided to build a one-way loop.
He also says it's "Quite a posh neighbourhood."
Is it a posh neighbourhood?
Yeah. It's the 16th.
Yeah. The 16th? All right.
"Where people don't look very positively
at the Metro arriving".
Wow.
That happened in London as well.
There were some areas where people were like,
"We don't want the underground here."
So that happened in Paris too?
Absolutely.
Thanks, Louis.
Thanks for the history.
Nice.
Next stop, Least Used station.
Made it.
Eglise d'Auteuil.
(train rumbles)
A ll Paris Metro stations
have one of these amazing maps don't they?
where they show you the exits.
Yes.
So two, there's two exits.
So there's the main exit here.
Yes.
No there. That one there.
Next to the church.
And there's well, that's the church there,
and there's also a little one down there.
So which, we should go out...
We should check out both exits.
Good plan.
Before we do station stats,
we need to do facilities.
Ah!
Is there a bin bag?
There is. There is, la poubelle!
Is there a dot matrix display?
A next train indicator?
There is.
There is the (speaks French)
I might have made that one up.
(laughs) Is there a vending machine?
Some stations have vending machines yeah, this one ... ?
There is not.
But I think there is a ticket office.
'Cause almost all Metro stations,
have staffed ticket offices, don't they?
Yes.
So that is a thing.
Yes. Okay.
They are stopping doing that,
they're beginning to stop doing that.
And is there a waiting shelter?
Well, no, because we're inside,
but are there benches to sit on?
There are four beautifully separated seats.
(doors clunking)
We've come outside, 'cause it stopped raining,
and the church is just over there.
So let's delve straight in.
Yes.
What is the RATP equivalent
of the Office of Rail and Road?
So the RATP publish the stats themselves,
on their own website.
Okay.
And they count it as station entrances.
So last year,
Yes. 2020.
drum roll. Tch-tch-tch-tch.
Eglise d'Auteuil, had-
95,000.
Hang on if you've got it in a folder,
does that mean I can't also splash it up on screen?
So I said 95,182.
What's that?
What's that in French, please?
(speaking in French)
95,192 per year,
which is how many a day?
260 a day.
In French please.
(speaking in French)
Per?
(speaking in French)
Well done. Okay.
That's not a lot, is it?
No, no. Not for Paris.
Compared to say,
what are some of the bigger Paris Metro stations like?
What are the big ones?
Chatelet is probably the busiest one.
That's the busiest station in the network.
Yeah, okay.
'Cause that's a combination of how many lines?
Do we know?
10?
Yeah. I'm going to test him now,
because what you don't know, Tim,
is that I'm going to test your Paris Metro knowledge-
Yay.
in a section of the video that I like to call,
"Testing Tim's Paris Metro knowledge."
Ah, yes.
(french accordion music)
I'm going to give you a colour,
and you're going to tell me what number line it is.
And I'm not allowed to look at the map?
And you're not allowed to look at the map.
Okay. Navy blue.
That is the two. (speaks in French)
It is line two. (bell tings)
Okay. Okay.
Dark green.
Dark Green is the (speaks in French)
No, the (speaks in French)
The 12 is correct. (bell tings)
Pink?
That would be the seven.
(bell tings) You're good?
Three out of three.
I very carefully said,
this is based on 366 days-
Yes. For 2020.
Yes.
And that is because,
there is a new station on an extension of line 14,
which only opened, I think on the 14th of December,
last year.
So it was only open for two weeks.
There was a station on line 14, Clichy Saint-Ouen.
Which is only an RER station, or was.
Which was previously just an RER stop.
Now it's got a Metro.
Now it's a Metro stop, as well.
And that only had 75,809 entries.
But next year, do you think it will come back?
Next year, will be way more,
because that's 4,211 per day.
Okay, so next year it will come back to being this.
Yeah. This is the perennial, least used-
Good word.
Translate that into French.
(speaks in French)
(laughs) Do you want to look at the church?
Yeah, let's do that.
(church piano music)
(church bell chimes)
Church bell says it's three o'clock.
(speaking in French)
How's my French coming along?
(laughs) All weekend,
I've been, I've been trying, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, I should do the thing,
I've been trying to collect Paris Metro maps,
as many as possible.
(speaking in French)
Ok, I love the noise the 'whhhheeeeeeee'
the whine, the door makes
also, the older trains with the handles
so much better than push button doors.
And we travelled yesterday, not on line 10,
was it line 11?
Line 11.
That's got the big, big,
the big rubber tyres.
If you only come to Paris for one day and ride one line,
ride line 11.
Hang on, if line 10 is the Bakerloo, Tim,
what? What's, what's line 11?
Line 11 is kind of Bakerloo-y as well.
(Geoff laughs)
It's brown.
Is just all of Paris Metro like the Bakerloo line?
10 and 11 are.
Oh, 10 and 11. ten and eleven are the Bakerloo Brothers.
(laughs) Oh man. You've just coined a whole new phrase - there we go
"Bakerloo Brothers".
We should be the "Bakerloo Brothers".
We should form a band,
called the Bakerloo Brothers, Tim can play...
You know I play instruments?
I know. (laughs) That's the joke, Tim. (laughs)
We are the "Bakerloo Brothers".
That's it, it's a thing!
If you were to sum up Eglise d'Auteuil.
It's a classic Metro station.
It's got that slight sort of villagey feel to it,
because it's on line 10 and it's single track.
I like it. I love it.
Can we do this again sometime?
(doors clunk)
(train whines)
Why is it named twice?
Why not? Saint Ouen, Saint Ouen.
It was originally called Clichy Saint Ouen,
but then they decided to just call it Saint Ouen.
Also, platform edge doors.
Yeah.
Which you get on all of line 14?
Yes. This is The Jubilee of Paris.
The Jubilee line of the Paris Metro.
I love it.
So technically this is the Metro's least used station,
but we all know it's not.
Technically.
Just due to a statistical anomaly,
which shall be corrected next year.
And that brings us to
Gare De Saint Ouen.
We're outside. Very impressive.
Even though the actual real least used station
on the Metro is...
Eglise d'Auteuil.
Tim, this is where you plug your channel,
and tell people the fun thing we did yesterday.
Yesterday, we filmed a little video on my channel,
where we walked along a disused railway,
a railway that was disused twice.
So it's a disused railway, on a disused railway.
And what is your channel all about?
And why should people subscribe?
So my channel is called The Tim Traveller.
I make videos about weird railways,
international borders,
random other stuff.
You will probably enjoy at least one in four of my videos.
(chuckles) I enjoy about half of them.
That's pretty good.
(chuckles) That's pretty good Am happy with that
than you very much!
So you'll now get a link to Tim's video,
in Tim's video, there's a link to mine.
We're going to release them at the same time.
So you'll sort of get caught in this perpetual loop-
That's the plan. Yes. of watching those videos,
but that'd be great.
I think there's only one way we can end,
you know what's coming, don't you?
We need a musical number.
It is...
The Bakerloo brothers to play us out.
( gentle piano music)
(wrong note plays) (Geoff exclaims)
And cut. (laughs)