Train watching in Paris

[scole100]

My family and I will taking a vacation in France this summer. Several years ago I was lucky enough to ride the Eurostar out of London to Paris while on business, but never got to look around the Paris area for anything train related. Does any one know of any good museums or other train locations I can take my boys to see while we are there? My wife is a good sport, but my train watching time will be somewhat limited, so I want as much information on what is available before we go.

[martin.knoepfel]

The French National Railway Museum is located in Mulhouse in Eastern France. You can easilty make it with from Paris to Mulhouse and back in one day, using the train. (Not yet the TGV.)

At Mulhouse, there is also the French National Car Museum. Dozens of oldtimer and classic cars, especially Bugattis - and some manufacturers I didn't even know the name before I visited the museum some years ago.

[colin_mcleod]

If you go to St. Larez station in Paris, then walk along the public road until you are approximately half a mile beyond the end of the platfrms, there are a nunmber of overbridges giving excellent views of the busy commuter trains. There are five double track lines (ten tracks in total) on the approaches to this station. Each of these ten tracks is a running line, and at the rush hour it is not unusual to see five trains all moving at the same time. There are always at lest two moving at once, with three quite frequently. Fascinating to watch.

[martin.knoepfel]

There is a map of the rail network in the Paris-area on the wepage http://www.transilien.com/FR/carte/MapC.htm