To date most of the metro photography and exploration you've gorged yourself on here has concerned the system, the tunnels and the spaces we've found. This is a fair representation of what we encountered in quantity but not in the level of interest provoked. With time the tunnels become repetitive, the junctions similar and the abandoned stations done. Eventually the metro becomes about the experience and the adventure. More a journey than a destination. As a live system it's always exciting as there is very little you can control. A conflagration of uncontrollable variables conspire to make things unpredictable and dangerous. But that's the fun, the risk. As they say, there's never a dull night in the metro.

The most interesting thing in the system is, to the foamer’s delight, the trains. We're half chubby at the merest hint of laid up stock, so what? As you've read in the previous chapters of metro demolition we spent a good deal of our time avoiding the trains and staying the hell out of their way. With good reason. They're unconcerned by our weak, fleshy bodies and totally indifferent to whether said body remains in one piece, or many smeared down 100m of track.

However it's inevitable that over the course of our adventures we'd encounter these beasts up close, personal and stationary. Over time they became more and more frequent as we gained courage to venture into more inhabited sections of the system. I won't go into detail on the average parisian metro carriage since they're seen day in day out and if you're keen, easily found stored in the system with some couilles. There are places one can venture on any given night and be almost guaranteed of finding a train.



In contrast the lumbering yellow work trains seem almost randomly distributed. One night you'll find one in a raccord, return the next and it's nowhere to be found, vanished into the fabric of the system. More than a few times we'd be relaxing in a deserted raccord tunnel only to be surprised by the sound of an approaching work train. Since they often use the raccords to switch between lines they're a real wildcard. Stay on your toes because remember, TNADNITM.



Of course if you are looking for passenger trains then you're going to find hurdles, and plenty of them. Almost any location which routinely stores 'em will have cameras and alarms. Some are avoidable, some are not. Pose your saline pumped sack o' nuts and pray to gods you don't believe in anyways.

For instance, take the driverless sex-robo-trains of line 14. They're a rare sight since currently they only operate on one line. To reach even the solitary one pictured below you're dodging cameras, bypassing doors and running down a dead end tunnel for a quick peek. Also word to the wise, opening the doors into line 14 will halt ALL traffic and if caught, cops you a fine measured in thousands of euros per minute.



At the top of the pile though, scarce and treasured by foamers, explorers and writers alike are the prize of the fleet - The Spragues. These are the grail and finding a mint one is like hens teeth. Snappel was visiting from the UK again and with every visit he'd always be going on about sprague this sprague that, as if one night we'd just chance upon one parked in a tunnel. We were passing through a station one night when we chanced upon a door, pushed it open and descended towards a part of the station unknown to us. Snappel was coming down the stairs behind me and I looked back to see his face contort into the biggest smile I've ever seen. At the sight before him he blasted a hole through the front of his pantalons. Proper 5 roll soaker as Little Mike would say.





Sitting on the platform, like it was fresh from a 1930's production line, was a goddamn mint looking twin-car Sprague resplendent in ravishing red and green against the sparkling backdrop of white tile. Red for first class, green for second. The panels were shiny and true, the inside lovingly worn. The wooden second class seats were polished, the padded first class ones still springy. We'd chanced unknowingly upon the jewel of the system in a once in a lifetime opportunity.



The true lesson here is that had we been looking for a mint sprague we'd not have found it any sooner, it was sheer persistence in simply being in the metro night after night after night that we'd finally found something we never thought possible. The system has many surprises not marked and not documented. Finding them comes down to time spent and effort exerted. Metro is about the thrill of the chase. Get chased by the yellow, white and green ones while you're chasing those elusive little red and green ones.