The Metro SK

This is not about a North American place but about a place in France, one of the most iconic place near Paris. This is for me the opportunity to share not only photos, but to talk about the Metro SK and its fabulous surrounding. A great place for Urbex.

In the late 80's, the city of Noisy le Grand was supposed to build a new district mainly for companies and businesses. Within 15 min by suburban train from Paris, this new district was expected to become a huge business place. There was one tiny problem, the new district was located near a "gettho" with drugs trafficking, Les Espaces d'Abraxas¹. To make it more attractive, they decided to build a 560m long metro line between the suburban train and the district so that the workers would never cross the ghetto.

They started the project in the early 90's. It was going to be a brand new french technology, a SK transportation system. Basically, a mini people mover where up to 10 persons could fit in a small cabin. The construction ended in 1993, the technology was working and it was officially launched by the officials.

BUT...

The investor supposed to pay a large part of the district declared bankruptcy and the business district was never built. It was too late, they've built the entire system before the district it was supposed to serve. The metro SK was ending in the middle of a wasteland. The officials never opened it to the public. To avoid malfunctions, they made it work with nobody inside everyday, then every week, then every months, and then after 6 years they completely stopped to make it work for nothing. After several years, it became a great place for urbexer until it was graffed and vandalised. Today, the place is half destroyed. One of the station has been destroyed to allow the construction of a housing project.


This place is really important to me because it was my very first urbex experience back in 2013. I was brought there by Geocaching² and had no idea what was urbex before that day. I started feeling that happiness and that thrill when discovering the unexpected, a whole metro system that only a few heard of. I had the opportunity to visit all the place, even the now destroyed station, but I never took pictures of that. Instead, I took some 360 shots from my very last visit.

Click here for Virtual Tour


The suburban train station


Inside one of the cabins


The tracks between the two stations


¹You may have already seen this place in one of the Hunger Games movie.
²A world "treasure hunting" game. That was maybe stupid to place something here for non urbexers, but thanks anyway to that guy who made my day.

This post and your photos are so unique! I love it!

This looks like a place you could easily get lost in

Wow, this is a very interesting post! I visited Noisy-le-Grand in 2016 and walked around the neighborhood a whole afternoon and was amazed by its unique modernist architecture. Little did I know there was an abandoned metro line underneath!

Posted by iamglamourghoul This looks like a place you could easily get lost in

Actually not that much. There was only two stations linked by a 560m tunnel. Each station is only one bigroom, with some mechanical rooms around but that's not a lot. The place is big but easy to know your way inside.