CEVA rail

CEVA Cornavin‒Eaux Vives‒Annemasse
Railways around Geneva. CEVA shown in red
Overview
Type	Commuter
System	SNCF and CFF
Status	Cornavin to Pont Rouge and Eaux-Vives to Annemasse: Open; Pont Rouge to Eaux-Vives Planned
Locale	Switzerland (Canton Geneva) and France (Haute Savoie)
Termini	Gare de Cornavin, Geneva Annemasse
Operation
Opened	1888; 1949; 2019
Owner	Swiss Federal Railways
Operator(s)	Swiss Federal Railways
Technical
Line length	14.1 km (8.8 mi)
Number of tracks	Double track
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	15 kV 16.67 Hz
Route map to Lausanne 15.8 Gare de Genève-Cornavin to Geneva Airport to Bellegarde and Lyon Saint-Jean (222 m) la Jonction (Rhône) (218 m) la Bâtie (1078 m) 11.8 Lancy-Pont-Rouge Genève-La-Praille 10.4 Carouge-Bachet Pinchat Val d'Arve Champel 7.1 Champel-Hôpital 5.594 Genève-Eaux-Vives 4.946 Grange-Canal (360 m) 3.681 Seymaz (12 m) 3.405 Chêne-Bourg Swiss-French border 2.002 Foron (7 m) 0.990 Ambilly 0.000 172.715 to Annecy, St-Gervais and Bellegarde 172.715 Annemasse to Evian

CEVA (Cornavin‒Eaux-Vives‒Annemasse) is an orbital rail line under construction designed to connect the main Gare de Cornavin railway station of Geneva (Switzerland) on the north of Lake Geneva with Gare d'Annemasse of Annemasse (France) to the south of Lake Geneva. When completed the link will allow through running between the main Swiss rail network and the isolated line east of Annemasse in Haute-Savoie which was served until 2013 by French SNCF services. A new station is under construction on the route at Gare des Eaux-Vives and the line between this station and the border is being replaced with a double track line in tunnel. Track already exists as far as Geneva Stade station and based on the current state of the work the full route might open in December 2019.

The project is to build the remaining section of an outer ring link connecting Geneva, (Cornavin station) with Annemasse running through Geneva's west, south and south eastern suburbs. It will enhance the public transport network of the Geneva region, which increasingly over the years has become a trans-frontier conurbation, with thousands of cross-border daily commuters travelling to and fro between the Geneva area and surrounding regions of France. It will link the CFF route Lausanne – Geneva Cornavin – Geneva Airport and the SNCF route Geneva Cornavin – Bellegarde-sur-Valserine – Lyon with lines in the Haute Savoie serving Thonon-les-Bains, Évian-les-Bains, the valley of the Arve to St Gervais and Chamonix and from Annemasse to Annecy.

The origins of the project go back to 1850. In 1888 the Eaux-Vives to Annemasse line was opened. At Eaux Vives, the abutments were built for a bridge across the main road on the alignment of the proposed link round to Cornavin. This Geneva ring was part of a proposed new link to the Simplon route to Italy, using a direct route from Paris and Dijon under the Jura mountains via the Faucille tunnel to Geneva, round the 'CEVA' route and along the south side of Lake Geneva to St-Maurice. This was never realised due to competition from the Vaud canton which succeeded in keeping the Dijon – Vallorbe – Lausanne – St Maurice route as the main Simplon line to Italy.