The success of the Leman Express, or LEx, continues unabated. To mark the fifth anniversary of this Franco-Swiss cross-border rail network, the creation of a seventh line was announced on 12 June. This is very good news for business travellers who have to catch a plane at Geneva airport, as it will will directly link Geneva airport at Annemassewithout passing through Geneva Cornavin station.
This new line, the L7, will enter service in December, during the changeover to the 2025-2026 winter timetable. To achieve this, the trains will use part of the track previously reserved for goods trains, in particular the Chatelaine tunnel. Like the other lines, this L7 will be managed by Lémanis, the joint venture between SNCF and CFF, the Swiss railways.
80,000 passengers a day
Opening in December 2019, the Leman Express now serves 45 stations and covers a 230 km rail network between the cantons of Vaud and Geneva in Switzerland and the departments of Ain and Haute-Savoie in France. More than 77 million passengers have been carried since it opened, with 80,000 now using the line every day, rising to 50,000 by 2022.
This transport service, which offers frequencies every quarter of an hour since September 2024 to accommodate this growth, has significantly reduced cross-border road traffic at the various crossing points. In view of this success, SBB has decided to further increase capacity with the recent order for 25 new trainsets, to be delivered from 2032. A new line crossing Geneva from north to south, from Saint-Genis to Saint-Julien, is also under study.
French departments fully committed
On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Leman Express, the Haute-Savoie department announced that it had invested €114 million in the Franco-Vaud-Geneva RER by repairing tunnels, making level crossings safer, improving stations and creating interchanges. Some €2.8m is also allocated each year by the local authority for its operation.
In the Ain department, users and a dozen communes in the east of the department are campaigning for for the extension of lines 5 and 6 beyond Valserhône. A feasibility study was launched a few weeks ago to satisfy these residents and the town councillors of Haut-Bugey. On the French side, the main stations currently served are Bellegarde, Annecy, Annemasse, La Roche-sur-Foron and Saint-Gervais-les Bains-Le-Fayet.
