About this journey

Lausanne-Flon station sits at the heart of a 1 km underground terminus beneath the city centre, and the Lausanne–Échallens–Bercher line departs from it on metre-gauge track before emerging through a 1.7 km tunnel extension completed in September 2021 that brought trains to the surface at Union-Prilly. That infrastructure work, which replaced a former street-running section along Avenue d'Échallens, was part of a broader programme integrating the LEB into the RER Vaud regional express network.

The line's origins reach back to 4 November 1873, when the first section from Lausanne to Cheseaux opened under the Chemin de fer Lausanne-Échallens. The extension to Échallens followed on 2 June 1874, and a further section to Bercher — built to serve a Nestlé condensed milk plant — opened on 24 November 1889. On 1 January 1913 the two operating companies merged to form today's Chemin de fer Lausanne-Échallens-Bercher, and the entire 23.6 km line was electrified in 1936 at 1500 V DC on its own right-of-way.

Beyond Union-Prilly, the route climbs steadily across the Gros-de-Vaud plateau, the agricultural heartland of the canton of Vaud, ascending from around 471 m at Lausanne to a summit near Bercher at 627 m, with gradients reaching up to 6%. The train serving this journey is the RBe 4/8, a twin motor-coach unit ordered from Stadler Rail in December 2008, six of which were built for approximately CHF 41 million. The journey thus moves from a modern urban tunnel through open plateau farmland to the small market town of Bercher — a passage from dense city infrastructure to the quiet rhythms of the Vaudois countryside.