{"id":63493,"date":"2026-05-11T13:16:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/63493\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:16:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:16:31","slug":"switzerland-london-direct-train-service-gets-support-from-french-operators-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/63493\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland-London direct train service gets support from French operators"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Possible<\/p>\n

Possible direct train to London overcomes next hurdle <\/p>\n

Keystone-SDA <\/p>\n

Swiss Federal Railways’ ambition to connect Switzerland with London by direct train has moved a small step closer. A memorandum of understanding was signed with SNCF and Eurostar.\n<\/p>\n

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This content was published on <\/p>\n

May 11, 2026 – 11:23\n<\/p>\n

The letter of intent that has now been signed is an important milestone for the project. It is based on a cooperation agreement that SBB and the French SNCF Voyageurs signed back in March.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe signed MoU is an important milestone. The next step is to analyse potential timetables and operational concepts. The results will then be used to define the key steps and milestones in the potential introduction of such a direct connection from Switzerland to London,\u201d said the Swiss federal railways press release. <\/p>\n

SNCF Voyageurs already works closely with the Swiss rail company, and a direct connection to London would have to run through France. Eurostar has been operating cross Channel connections between continental Europe and the United Kingdom for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

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Emissions reduction\n <\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s night-train revival on \u2018shaky ground\u2019 <\/p>\n

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This content was published on <\/p>\n

Mar 19, 2026 <\/p>\n

Taking a night train across Europe is romantic and climate-friendly, and demand is strong. Yet the much-touted revival is hampered by ageing rolling stock, patchy funding and overstretched infrastructure. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Read more: Europe\u2019s night-train revival on \u2018shaky ground\u2019
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

A planned direct connection will enable travel times of six hours between Zurich and London, five and a half hours from Geneva and five hours from Basel, Swiss federal railways announced on Monday.<\/p>\n

Many more hurdles<\/p>\n

There is already a political support for the train. In May 2025, Swiss government minister Albert R\u00f6sti and British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander agreed on a corresponding intergovernmental agreement in London. <\/p>\n

However, there are still many hurdles to overcome before a direct connection is introduced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese include preparing entry formalities, the required infrastructure and intergovernmental agreements as well as ensuring the availability of suitable trains and train paths. Implementation would be feasible at the earliest sometime in the course of the 2030s,\u201d said the press release. <\/p>\n

Adapted from German by AI\/ac<\/p>\n

How we work <\/p>\n

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.<\/p>\n

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at\u00a0english@swissinfo.ch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Articles in this story <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Possible direct train to London overcomes next hurdle Keystone-SDA Swiss Federal Railways’ ambition to connect Switzerland with London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,312,114,100,3781,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-63493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-beat-various","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-production-type-aws-autotranslation","13":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116556135355248719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}