Haxo station


Haxo is a never-opened ghost station on the Paris Métro, laid on an unused connecting branch between lines 3bis and 7bis.

History

The station is situated on a single-track line, called voie des Fêtes, constructed in the 1920s between Place des Fêtes, and Porte des Lilas, close to Pré-Saint-Gervais, in order to allow an extension of said line from the Danube loop towards the Porte des Lilas, for an easier connection to the line 3 that, then, served the area. For traffic in the other direction, another track was constructed linking Porte des Lilas to Pré Saint-Gervais, with no intermediate station, called la voie navette. Consequently, Haxo would have been a single-direction station with only one platform, like Église d'Auteuil or Chardon-Lagache on line 10.
However, despite the network owners, the City of Paris, having delivered the necessary infrastructure, the railway operator, Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris, did not consider a service to be sufficiently profitable and thus halted the extension process in favor of a single-train shuttle from Pré-Saint-Gervais.
Service trains have never called at Haxo, and no pedestrian access to street level was ever constructed. Occasional special enthusiast trains call at Haxo for photography, and the station was also used to demonstrate the MF 88 rolling stock to the press in 1993.

Future

Studies about merging Paris Métro lines 3bis and 7bis using the existing currently untrafficked infrastructure have been made, which would therefore finally open Haxo for passenger use. The combined lines would run from Château Landon to Gambetta.
At the moment, the voie navette is blocked at Pré Saint-Gervais, on the station's second track, by an additional maintenance facility for the MF 88 rolling stock, due to said rolling stock's unreliability. Therefore, the line merger would first require completing the programmed cascading of MF 88 rolling stock to the brand new MF 19, which is expected for 2026.

Station layout

  • Note: The planned line 7 extension does not pass through Haxo on its way to Pré Saint-Gervais; It uses an outer track, la Voie Navette, next to the station yet not visible from its platform.