Geneva railway station, formerly known as Geneva Cornavin railway station, is Geneva's main train station, located in the centre of the city. The immediate area surrounding it is known as Cornavin; both names can be used interchangeably. The station has over 400 train departures every day from its eight through-platforms. Platforms 7 and 8 have French and Swiss border controls. Long distance and regional express trains leave for France without making any stops in Switzerland. Another reason to separate the tracks is the different electrical standards of the relevant railway system on either side. The French system uses 25 kV at 50 Hz AC, but the Swiss system uses 15 kV AC at 16.7 Hz. The station connects to one Swiss mainline, the Lausanne–Geneva line, which links the city with the rest of Switzerland, to the east. Many long-distance trains from this line continue to and terminate at the airport, 6 minutes away. There is also significant traffic to France westwards along the Lyon-Geneva line, which, for the first few kilometres, runs as a single track line alongside the double-track line to the airport. Traffic to France includes long-distance TGVs to Paris and southern France and regional trains to Lyon via Bellegarde. Cornavin is also the hub of the Léman Express network, with six routes in service. Many of these routes travel over the newly-opened CEVA, which leads to.
Facilities
The facilities at the station include a police station, cash machines, cafés, bars, food stands, a bakery, a supermarket, newsagents, a media shop, a cybercafe, kiosks, underground car park, an underground shopping arcade, toilets and showers, and luggage lockers.
The station entrance and a platform is seen in The Adventures of Tintin comic The Calculus Affair.
Planned extension of the railway station
The Swiss Federal Railways announced they would extend the railway station by constructing two new railway tracks. The station needs extending due to the planned increase in traffic over the coming years. The initial project cost 800 million Swiss francs and involved the demolition of 350 dwellings next to the station. A second project supported by residents of the neighborhood plan to build the two new tracks under the station with a total cost around 1.7 billion Swiss francs. The Swiss Federal Rail plans for the new extension to be completed by 2025. In April 2013, an initiative was launched to claim the extension under the station by the "Collectif 500" a neighborhood association.
