Bellegarde, a green station on the snow-covered mountains
A new bio-climatic station between Switzerland and France! The new station in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, on the Haut-Bugey line, is a major multimodal interchange and an environmentally-friendly station !
Service operates on the new Haut-Bugey line.
It provides a more direct TGV route between Bourg-en-Bresse and Geneva and brings Paris to within 3 hours of Geneva.
Bellegarde-sur-Valserine forms a passenger crossroads at a key point on the route - a big multimodal interchange that is set to become one of the French network's most innovative stations.
The circular passenger building will operate on the basis of a new bio-climatic principle whereby solar energy is used to heat the air in the winter and provide natural ventilation in the summer.
The building with have two "skins":
- a wooden outer shell around the central hall
- an outer translucent shell made of ETFE covering the whole building, and connected in to solar panels. The heat generated will be stored and used to provide energy for the building.
Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene or ETFE is an innovative translucent material that is lighter than glass and lets in the sun's rays.
The sun will power the stations of tomorrow !








