La petite ceinture du XIIe

The Petite Ceinture is a defunct railway line that encircles Paris, marked today by rusted tracks and overgrown vegetation tucked away from the city's main thoroughfares. Construction began in eighteen fifty-two under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann to transport goods and passengers between the city's major train stations. At its height during the nineteen hundred Exposition Universelle, the railway carried millions of travelers, but the later expansion of the Paris Métro rendered the circular route obsolete.