Sunday, June 3, 2012

Sunday Spotlight: A commute fit for a (Sun) King


This Sunday we put aside the cosmic and instead turn to the tongue-in-chic: commuter rail cars fit for the Sun King.



The SNCF, the French national railroad, on the 16th of May quietly slipped into service the first of five suburban train sets operating between Paris and Versailles, its cars decorated with photographic reproductions of the domain's most evocative decors.



Bright, airy, graphic and clever, the lighthearted interiors are a joint effort of the SNCF and the town and château of Versailles. Once all five trains are in service on the RER C line, your chance of catching one is 1 in 5.


Whether you ride beneath the ceiling of Le Brun's Galerie des glaces or no, the trip to Versailles sure beats sitting in a wooden box held on sprung steel straps straddling a fixed undercarriage rolling with steel-banded wheels over unpaved dirt roads. In short, you ride better than a king.





(All images are © C Recoura, from France Today online. Hat tip to Two Nerdy History Girls and their wonderful Sunday breakfast links.)

2 comments:

  1. Many thanks for the shout-out! I'm a great fan of your blog, as you've probably guessed by how often you appear in the weekly Breakfast Links.

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  2. And many thanks to you both in turn! We very much appreciate your thoughtfulness and are regular visitors to your wonderful blog as well. And we're extemely pleased that you enjoy our posts and grateful that you spread them to a wider audience. All our best.

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