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18-500: Although a line on the St. Gingolph–Saint-Maurice –Brig route was technically easy to build, the Valais government was unable to attract enough Swiss investors to build the line. The share capital came from France. The driving force behind the project was the speculator Count Adrien de Lavalette (Fr) . The company gained a concession for a line from Le Bouveret to Sion in 1853. The object of

36-474: A drainage pipe) located near the lake. These stories are documented in a book privately published in 1994 by the late André Zénoni, "Saint-Gingolph et sa région frontière dans la Résistance 1940-1945". (Intermarriage across the frontier is less frequent in the modern age because there are separate primary schools ("L'École André Zénoni" on the French side) and French lycéens are bussed to Evian, while Swiss students take

54-790: A year later for a line from Le Bouveret to Sion, however, was successful and received a federal concession. The line was planned as an international through route, but never operated in this manner. This was partly because its continuation, the Saint-Gingolph–Évian railway , was opened in 1886 and thus after the opening of the Lausanne–Brig line. The section of the line in France was built by the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM). Passenger operations between Évian-les-Bains and Saint-Gingolph were closed in 1937. Freight on

72-569: Is administratively divided into Saint-Gingolph, Valais (Switzerland) and Saint-Gingolph, Haute-Savoie (France). Its name is derived from the eighth-century saint Gangulphus , who is said to have lived as a hermit in this region. Its division at the Morge dates from 1569: as the municipal Web site explains, it is one town consisting of a single parish (the church and cemetery are on the French side) with two municipal administrations and two distinct legal systems. The town played an important role during

90-558: Is limited to hourly regional trains operated by RegionAlps . These have increased in frequency, after it was one of the few lines in Switzerland where services had been reduced to a two-hour frequency in the 1990s. The regional services now continue beyond Saint-Maurice to Brig. Various sidings in Monthey and Collombey serve daily freight traffic towards Saint-Maurice. In addition to the sidings (Losinger, Givo., CABV, AGIP), only Monthey station

108-471: Is open on the basic network for single wagonload traffic. Although Bouveret is still open as an operating point for freight traffic, it is currently used very rarely. Therefore, there is no daily freight traffic between Saint-Gingolph and Monthey. Saint-Gingolph Saint-Gingolph is a small town situated on the south bank of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). It sits at the France–Switzerland border and

126-527: The French–Swiss border near Saint-Gingolph was opened together with its continuation towards Évian-les-Bains on 1 June 1886. The line together with the French line to Évian is sometimes called the Tonkin Line , because construction workers saw similarities in the geological conditions to Indochina . It was the first railway line in the canton of Valais . A 691 metre-long tunnel had to be built on

144-617: The Ligne d’Italie company founded in 1856 was to build a connection between Romandy and Italy through the Canton of Valais and the Simplon . The connection to Geneva and France was planned to run along the southern shore of Lake Geneva . After several requests, de Lavalette commenced construction. The Ligne d’Italie opened its first section from Le Bouveret (at the southeastern end of Lake Geneva) to Martigny via Saint-Maurice on 14 July 1859. The line

162-621: The World War II when Haute Savoie was occupied first by the Italian and then by the Nazi German Armed Forces . The fact of large-scale intermarriage and business and family connections across the frontier made it possible for the Resistance to smuggle goods, arms and refugees (including many French Jews) across the border, often using a secret tunnel (no longer in existence; it was actually

180-833: The Compagnie du Simplon was bought by the Western Swiss Railways, which then changed its name to the Western Switzerland–Simplon Company ( Suisse-Occidentale–Simplon , SOS). The short Le Bouveret– Saint-Gingolph branch line opened on 1 June 1886, connecting with the line of the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée in Savoy. In 1890, the SOS merged with the Jura-Simplon-Bahn (JS), which significantly accelerated

198-537: The approach to Saint-Maurice which is the only major structure of the line (the tunnel was shortened to 490 metres during an upgrade of the Simplon Railway to double track in 1906). As early as 1852, a concession was sought for a line from Villeneuve to Aosta . Among other things, this did not proceed because the canton of Valais required two connecting lines, one between Martigny and Sion and one between Illersaz and Le Bouveret . An application submitted

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216-531: The efforts to construct the Simplon Tunnel . The following is a list of the locomotives of the Ligne d'Italie and the Ligne du Simplon: Saint-Gingolph%E2%80%93Saint-Maurice railway The Saint-Gingolph–Saint-Maurice railway is a single-track railway in Switzerland. It was opened on 14 July 1859 by the Ligne d’Italie . It connects Le Bouveret on Lake Geneva with Saint-Maurice . The line to

234-558: The line gained momentum during the Second World War, when it was the only line crossing into Switzerland that was not directly under the control of the Axis powers. Then it returned to insignificance, so that in 1988 all traffic ended on the French side. Since then, traffic has only run towards Saint-Maurice. The line between Saint-Maurice and Collombey was electrified in 1946 and the rest of the line to Saint-Gingolph in 1954. Passenger traffic

252-408: The train to Monthey. Thereafter, each tend to seek employment in their own country. In any case, the town is so small that there are only two or three weddings recorded in a year.) The Swiss railway line from St Maurice and Martigny terminates at Saint-Gingolph (Switzerland), the French line from Evian to Saint-Gingolph having been abandoned in the late 1980s. There is now discussion of resuscitating

270-479: The very agricultural canton of Valais, was not successful. In addition, Sardinia ceded Savoy to France in 1860 and, with the opening of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel in 1871, a line was opened from Lyon to Turin , which competed directly with the projected line. The Ligne d'Italie was liquidated in 1871 and a new company was established under the same name. The LI had to be liquidated for the second time and it

288-514: Was extended to Sion on 10 May 1860. On 2 April 1861, the Western Swiss Railways opened the last section of its line from Lausanne to Les Paluds near Saint-Maurice, giving the Ligne d'Italie access to the Swiss railway network. The next section from Sion to Sierre opened after some delay on 15 October 1868, bringing the total length of the line to 79.5 km. The company, which opened up

306-584: Was now 116.9 km long. Although projects have been developed time and again to extend the line through a tunnel under the Simplon to Domodossola , sufficient finance did not become available for the time being. The line remained a branch line and the operation's results were insufficient to cover interest charges. Nevertheless, the Simplon Railway led to significant economic progress in the Valais. On 1 July 1881,

324-485: Was sold on 1 June 1874 to the new Compagnie du Simplon (S) for a symbolic price of CHF 202,422 plus CHF 500,000 of bonds. The shareholders lost all their capital and the work, which had cost almost CHF 25 million. The operations of the Compagnie du Simplon were managed by the Western Swiss Railways (SO). The line was extended from Sierre to Leuk on 1 June 1877 and to the provisional terminus in Brig on 1 July 1878. The line

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