About this journey

Miramas station sits at a junction on the Paris–Marseille railway, where branch lines diverge towards Martigues and Salon-de-Provence, giving it the character of a regional operational hub before the run south to the coast. The line itself was opened in stages between 1847 and 1856, built by three separate companies that merged into the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée in 1857. Napoleon III used the route as an instrument of regional integration, earning it the enduring nickname the 'Imperial Line'. The PLM later became a principal artery for freight as well as passengers — by 1909, up to 10% of the company's freight profits came from the wine trade alone.

The journey ends at Marseille-Saint-Charles station, which opened on 8 January 1848 on the site of the former Saint Charles Cemetery. The station now has 14 terminal platforms and four through tracks, all supplied at 1500 V DC. The opening of the LGV Méditerranée in 2001 redirected much long-distance traffic onto high-speed infrastructure, yet Marseille-Saint-Charles has grown steadily busier as a result: annual passengers rose from 7.1 million in 2000 to 17.9 million in 2024. A €230 million modernisation completed in December 2007 reshaped the station to meet that demand, and the classic line from Miramas remains a working backbone of the network it helped to create.