Gare de Lyon Saint-Exupéry

Gare de Saint-Exupéry TGV (formerly Gare de Satolas) is a railway station near Lyon, France, directly attached to Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport. The station was an addition to the airport built to serve TGV trains on the LGV Rhône-Alpes, part of the main line running from Paris to Marseille. It is situated about 20 km east of Lyon city centre.

Saint-Exupéry station was designed by Santiago Calatrava, cost 750 million Francs and opened on 3 July 1994, at the same as the high speed line to Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence. The building is mostly a combination of concrete and steel.

Interior of the station

The station has six tracks laid in a cutting. The two central tracks are isolated to permit trains to traverse the station at full speed (300 km/h). Both sets of two tracks have platforms 500 m long. To the west, a small piece of land has been put aside for future expansion. Above the tracks, a 300 m long passenger concourse gives easy access to the platforms and is equipped with several travelators.

The railway station is linked to Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport by a footbridge equipped with a travelator. This airport is historically the first to be served by a high speed station. Unfortunately, this proximity to the airport has not helped the station and it sees little use as passengers mainly use Lyon-Perrache and Lyon Part-Dieu.

Lack of interconnexion with Lyon's urban transport network is frequently cited for the station's low usage. The arrival of the Rhônexpress express tram in 2010 might help this situation.