tenth June 2025
The journey will take 5 hours and 20 minutes and will start within the early 2030s. NEW
Eurostar at the moment runs a service to the French Alps within the ski season, and the brand new service will give entry to resorts in Switzerland and in France.
There isn’t any phrase on costs or the timetable.
At present the identical journey takes about 7.5 hours by practice, with a switch in Paris.
A flight to Geneva from London takes about one hour and 40 minutes.
Eurostar has introduced it’s to construct a brand new fleet of as much as 50 trains, costing round £1.7bn, and a few will probably be used on the brand new Geneva route.
“A brand new golden age of worldwide sustainable journey is right here,” mentioned chief govt Gwendoline Cazenave, including that clients had been “desirous to go additional by rail than ever earlier than”.
Eurostar. Picture © PlanetSKI
Swiss Federal Railways, SBB, the nationwide rail firm of Switzerland, mentioned it welcomed the plan.
“Information about plans for extra direct companies to the Alps is all the time good to listen to,” mentioned Daniel Elkan from the website, Snow Carbon, that specialises in practice journey to the mountains.
“However for this to be successful, Eurostar wants to make sure that onward connections to ski resorts have been totally thought by means of and seek the advice of with the journey trade – one thing that it has usually did not do prior to now.
“Plus, for these longer journeys, companies on board turn out to be much more essential.
“For instance, Eurostar took all the enjoyment out of its cafe bars, splitting them in two and turning them into uninteresting queue-up-and-return to your seat overpriced counters.
“The cafe bar must be a spot to hang around and luxuriate in a terrific menu and nice views.
“I hope the brand new trains replicate the significance of the traveller expertise.”
Eurostar’s announcement got here because the agency reported a 5% increase in passengers in 2024 in contrast with the earlier yr.
It noticed a file 19.5 million passengers final yr throughout all of its companies.
The agency can also be planning for the proposed new fleet to service a direct line to Geneva from each Amsterdam and Brussels.
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