High-speed route
TGV inOui
Paris → Lyon · France
- Distance
- 427 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 57 min
- Average speed
- 219 km/h
- Top speed
- 300 km/h
- Operator
- SNCF
- Train
- TGV Duplex
- Countries
- France
- In service since
- 1981
- Runs
- every 30 min or better
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
France’s first high-speed line, opened in 1981: the Paris–Lyon route that launched the whole TGV era, now run in under two hours.
Modern European high speed began on this corridor: the LGV Sud-Est opened in September 1981, its orange TGVs proving that city-centre rail could beat the airlines and rewriting the continent’s transport map. The line remains the busiest in France (Burgundy escarpments, Mâconnais vineyards and the Beaujolais hills compressed into under two hours), so saturated that a new signalling system is being fitted to squeeze in more paths. Lyon Part-Dieu, Europe’s busiest through station, absorbs the flow.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 3227018 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 6 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of FR 6647
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Sénart forest exit from Paris
- Burgundy escarpments
- Mâconnais vineyards
- Beaujolais hills to the west
- Part-Dieu towers
More high-speed routes
- Eurostar
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More train routes in France.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Lyon → Paris · Paris → Lyon.