Posted 2008-11-09. Tags: metro, paris, rer, tunnels, underground.

After the stress of the previous journey into the train tunnels below Paris, we opted to relax with a jaunt in the RER. The RER trains run on overhead power and the tunnels are spacious so physically they're a doddle. Since our recce months past access tightened up substantially but inconveniences aside qx and I found ourselves munching salt & vinegar chips and meandering through the tunnels scheming as usual. This city is a mountain of projects begging to be tackled. With time some of them might reach sleepycity.

If predictability is your bread and butter, if the spontaneous and the surprising make you weak at the knees then the Metro/RER isn't for you. If however, you like your adventures to mirror the moniker then we'll get along fine. Half an hour into our stroll we encountered two red signal lamps, one placed neatly on a railway sleeper in each track. Beside each lamp hung a rubber handled pole running a wire connecting the overhead wires above to the ground, earthing the power used to run the trains. Somewhere up ahead they were working.



Like any live site, these places never fully sleep. Somewhere in the system maintenance is goin' on. Tonight that was here. Lit like the disgustingly picturesque tourist mecca of the Champs Élysées there is no way to creep the RER. Worker brother has a 12" wrench in his back pocket, he's underpaid and under appreciated. Meeting two wayward explorers who see his workplace as a playground is in nobody's best interests and disciplining aftorementioned vagabonds is hardly his job either, so when seen we hightailed it outta dodge hurtling down the tunnel jumping signal boxes like hurdles . Such is life, some nights Lady Luck wants to stay in. Women eh?

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