Eurostar has signed an agreement with French and Swiss national rail companies to launch direct trains between London and Switzerland.
Journey times would be six hours to Zurich, 5.5 hours to Geneva, and five hours to Basel.
The three companies – Eurostar, SBB and SNCF Voyageurs – said demand for international rail travel is high and they see ‘significant potential’ for connecting London with Switzerland.
SBB and SNCF signed a co-operation agreement in March to develop potential new routes, and they have since entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Eurostar, which they described as ‘an important milestone’.
They said they aim to offer a direct connection to London ‘as soon as possible’ but cautioned that several steps are still required before the new service can be introduced, including preparing the necessary infrastructure and acquiring suitable trains. The earliest will be ‘sometime in the course of the 2030s’, they said.
