It was painted by Claude Monet in 1877 and depicted by Emile Zola in 1890 (
La Bête humaine
).
Its 27 routes allow you to reach Trouville, Deauville, Le Havre, Rouen and Caen (Normandy).
Under its glass roof, you can stroll through the Salle des pas perdus.
And it is the oldest station in France dedicated entirely to passenger transport.
Focus on Saint-Lazare station, in the heart of the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
Born thanks to Emile and Isaac Pereire a little more than three decades after the launch of the railway, the very first Saint-Lazare station saw the light of day in 1837. It was with it that Paris obtained its original railway.
The station buildings then constitute the terminus of the Paris – Saint-Germain-en-Laye line.
Certainly, trains had already been running in France for several years – notably on the Saint-Étienne – Andrézieux (Loire) lines, dedicated to the transport of coal, and Saint-Étienne – Lyon, initially dedicated to the transport of coal.
But if travelers had been traveling on the second since 1831, it was not dedicated to them.
We must therefore wait for the intervention of the Pereire brothers so that a rail link is entirely dedicated to passenger transport.
It was not always called Saint-Lazare station
And since the 19th century, the Saint-Lazare station has undergone many transformations.
It has already changed its name: originally, it was referred to as the “Western pier”.
It took its current name later, when it was installed at the corner of rue Saint-Lazare, which led to the leprosarium of the same name.
Because the Saint-Lazare station was not always located at 13, rue d'Amsterdam.
If it was already located in the 8th arrondissement, it was below Place de l'Europe that you could take the train.
In 1842, it was transferred to the corner of rue d'Amsterdam and rue Saint-Lazare.
It was not until 1895 that this first pier, no longer large enough, was finally destroyed.
And it holds other records: it is today the second station in France in terms of traffic: around 102.9 million travelers passed through it in 2022 – compared to 211.7 million for the Gare du Nord, which wins the first position.
Moreover, crowds of travelers were already jostling there in the 19th century, when it was built: from 1867, the Saint-Lazare station became the most important in Paris.
At the time, it only saw 25 million passengers pass through per year.