About this journey

Martigny station sits at the point where the Rhône makes an almost right-angle turn northward toward Lake Geneva, a geographic crossroads that has long connected Switzerland, France, and Italy. From here, the metre-gauge Ligne de Martigny au Châtelard — operated by TMR (Transports de Martigny et Régions) — threads south into the Alps, joining seamlessly with the French Ligne de Saint-Gervais-les-Bains-Le Fayet à Vallorcine. The through service linking these two lines has run under the Mont-Blanc Express brand since 1990.

The French section of this corridor, opened in stages between 1901 and 1908 by the PLM, is 36.5 km of single-track, metre-gauge railway electrified by top-contact third rail at 850 V DC. To cross the Alpine watershed, the line passes through the Col des Montets tunnel, bored in 1907, which is 1,883 m long and reaches a summit altitude of 1,365 m before descending toward the Swiss border. The BDeh 4/8 rolling stock used on this run — jointly procured with the Martigny–Châtelard in 1997 — carries both third-rail shoes and rack-and-pinion equipment, allowing it to work across the two systems without change. TMR operates the final 3 km from the border at Le Châtelard into Vallorcine station, where the Swiss and French networks meet.