LGV Rhin-Rhône
The LGV Rhin-Rhône (Ligne à Grande Vitesse) is a high-speed railway line, the first in France to be built as an inter-regional route rather than a link from the provinces to Paris. The first phase of the eastern branch opened on 11 December 2011. Construction of its second phase was expected to start in 2014 but has unclear funding at this stage.
If completed, LGV Rhin-Rhône would have three branches:
The construction of the latter two branches and of the second phase of the Eastern branch is currently unfunded.
Running north-south, the Southern branch line would help connect Germany, the north of Switzerland, and eastern France on the one hand with the valleys of the Saône, Rhône, the Mediterranean arc and finally Catalonia on the other. The east-west Eastern and Western branches lines would help connect on the one hand London, Brussels, Lille and Île-de-France (i.e., Paris and surroundings) with Burgundy, Franche-Comté, south Alsace, southern Baden, and Switzerland on the other.
