Musée d'Orsay () is a station in line C of the

Paris Region Paris () is the capital and largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the fourth-most populous city in the European Union and the 30th most densely popul ...

Réseau Express Régional The (; ), commonly abbreviated RER (), is a hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system serving Paris and its suburbs. It acts as a combined city-center underground rail system and suburbs-to-city-center commuter rail, similar to the Elizabe ...

(RER) rapid transit system, named after the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

, housed in the former

Gare d'Orsay The Gare d'Orsay () is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans railway). It w ...

. It is in the

7th arrondissement of Paris The 7th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. It is known for being, along with the 16th arrondissement and the ''commune'' of Neuilly-sur-Sein ...

, on the Quai Anatole-France. It was one of several stations attacked during the 1995 Paris Métro and RER bombings.

History

The

was opened in 1900 by the

Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans Chemin or Le Chemin may refer to: Arts and media * ''Le Chemin'' (Emmanuel Moire album), 2013 album by French singer Emmanuel Moire * ''Le Chemin'' (Kyo album), 2003 album by French band Kyo ** "Le Chemin" (song), title song from same-titled Kyo a ...

(Paris–Orléans Railway, PO) as a mainline railway station for the

1900 Exposition Universelle The Exposition Universelle of 1900 (), better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate develop ...

. It became the PO company's new central terminus station, after the company extended its line from the

Gare d'Austerlitz Gare d'Austerlitz ( English: ''Austerlitz station''), officially Paris Austerlitz, is one of the seven large Paris railway terminal stations. The station is located on the left bank of the Seine in the southeastern part of the city, in the 13 ...

in the 13th arrondissement. The line made use of the new technology at the time, 550 V DC

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a track (r ...

electric traction Railway electrification is the use of electric power for the propulsion of rail transport. Electric railways use either electric locomotives (hauling passengers or freight in separate cars), electric multiple units (passenger cars with their own ...

, and it was constructed in a

cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two Portal (architecture), portals common at each end, though ther ...

tunnel along the

left bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...

of the Seine from Austerlitz to the

Quai d'Orsay The Quai d'Orsay ( , ) is a quay in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Place de la Concorde. It becomes the Quai Anatole-France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai Branly west of the ...

. By the late 1930s,

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

mainline trains had grown too long for the platforms at Gare d'Orsay, and had to terminate at Gare d'Austerlitz. Orsay station fell into disuse and lay derelict for many years. The line was brought back into passenger service when a extension was built in a tunnel along the bank of the Seine, connecting the former PO line to the Gare des Invalides, the terminus of the Rive Gauche line to

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

. A new Quai d'Orsay underground station was built on the bank of the River Seine, adjacent to the old Orsay terminal station. The new link opened as the Transversal Rive Gauche on 26 September 1979, and today this forms the central section of the RER Line C. On the opening of the

in the former Gare d'Orsay station in 1986, Quai d'Orsay station was renamed after the museum. On 17 October 1995, Musée d'Orsay station was subjected to a terrorist attack during the

1995 France bombings A series of attacks targeted public transport systems in Paris and Lyon, as well as a school in Villeurbanne, in 1995. They were carried out by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), who sought to expand the Algerian Civil War to France. The at ...

, when a gas bottle exploded between Musée d'Orsay and Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame station, wounding 29 people.Sophie Bouniot, "Des dénégations absurdes face aux preuves irréfutables" rchive humanite.fr, 24 October 2002

Adjacent stations

Assemblée Nationale The National Assembly (, ) is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are known as () or deputies. There are 577 , each elected by ...

and

Solférino Solférino (; ) is a commune in the Landes department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It was created in 1863 by Napoléon III by uniting several neighboring communities. It is named after the Battle of Solferino. Population ...

Paris Métro Line 12 Paris Métro Line 12 (opened as Line A; French language, French: ''Ligne 12 du métro de Paris'') is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro. It links Issy-les-Moulineaux, a suburban town southwest of Paris, to Aubervilliers, in the north. ...

are both within walking distance.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Musee d'Orsay station Réseau Express Régional stations Buildings and structures in the 7th arrondissement of Paris Railway stations in France opened in 1900 ja:ミュゼ・ドルセー駅

History

Adjacent stations

See also

References

External links