Gare du Nord

Gare du Nord stands in Paris, its present building designed by the architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff and built between 1861 and 1865, opening for service in 1864 while construction was still underway. The station's stone and cast-iron facade takes the form of a triumphal arch, its top crowned by an allegorical statue representing Paris herself, flanked by statues of eight further cities served by the station's rail lines, including London, Berlin and Amsterdam, with statues of French cities such as Lille and Amiens set lower on the facade. Gare du Nord has been enlarged and modified repeatedly since its opening, notably in 1889 and again across the 1930s to the 1960s, to keep pace with steadily growing passenger numbers. It now ranks as Europe's busiest railway station, handling upward of 700,000 passengers a day, and a further expansion project underway is intended to enlarge it to roughly two and a half times its earlier size, making it the largest railway station anywhere in Europe.