, near
Vaumarcus|thumb|left |thumb|left The Jura Foot Line was built in several stages. The oldest part are the sections opened by the
West Switzerland Company (
French: ''Compagnie de l'Ouest-Suisse
, OS) in May 1855 from Yverdon-les-Bains to Bussigny-près-Lausanne and in July 1855 from Bussigny to Morges via Renens. On 5 May 1856, the company opened two new sections, Renens to Lausanne and the connecting curve from Morges to Bussigny. The OS opened a line from Morges to Coppet on 14 April 1858 and a line from Coppet to Versoix on the following 21 April. On 25 June 1858 the OS connected with Geneva with the opening of the Versoix–Geneva route of the Geneva–Versoix Railway (French: Chemin de fer Genève–Versoix, GM). In 1859 it opened the section from Yverdon to Vaumarcus. On 7 November 1859 the Franco-Swiss Company (French: Compagnie Franco-Suisse
, LFB) opened an extension from Vaumarcus to the village of Frienisberg, near Le Landeron on Lake Biel. A temporary station was established at a pier in Frienisberg for a link by boat across Lake Biel to a station at Nidau near Biel built by the Swiss Central Railway (German: Schweizerische Centralbahn'', SCB). From the other direction in 1857 the SCB opened the line from Olten via
Herzogenbuchsee to Solothurn and along the current route to Biel south of Solothurn. This route avoided having to cross the
Aare river between Olten and Solothurn, but is longer than the route opened in 1876. In 1858 the SCB built a short line from Biel station to Nidau on Lake Biel, from where a connection by ship over Lake Biel was opened in 1859 to the temporary station at Frienisberg. The gap along the northern shore of Lake Biel from Biel to Landeron was closed on 3 December 1860 by the
Swiss East–West Railway (German:
Schweizerische Ostwestbahn, OWB). As a result, the short line from Biel to Nidau closed on 10 December 1860. It was now possible for the first time to travel from the east of Switzerland at
St. Margrethen to its west at Geneva by train, although the different railway companies involved meant that several changes of train were necessary. The last section of the line to be completed was the section from Olten to Solothurn via
Oensingen opened on 4 December 1876 by the SCB, also called the
Gäu railway (German: Gäubahn). This was originally planned as part of the
Swiss National Railway's proposed line from
Lake Constance to
Lake Geneva. The line from Herzogenbuchsee to Solothurn became a local railway after it was bypassed by the Gäu railway. As part of
Rail 2000, the line and its stations at
Derendingen,
Subingen,
Etziken and
Inkwil were closed in 1992 and most of it was rebuilt as
a connecting line without stations for high-speed passenger trains from Solothurn to the
Mattstetten–Rothrist new line, connecting at a junction at Wanzwil and opened on 12 December 2004. Under the
Rail 2000 program, a winding single-track section along the shore of
Lake Neuchâtel between
Gorgier-
St-Aubin and
Concise was replaced by a double track section mostly in tunnel, which was opened in 2000. ==References==