The Canton of Fribourg delayed the construction of the line from Bern to Lausanne in a bid to have it run through the city of Fribourg rather than on flatter land further west; in 1857 the Swiss government, the canton of Vaud and the West Switzerland Company gave in, allowing construction to commence on the line.

[2] On 2 July 1860, the line opened from Bern to the northern end of the 352 metre-long Grandfey Viaduct being built over the Saane river in Balliswil, near Fribourg.

It took another two years of hard work to complete the Grandfey Viaduct before the line from Fribourg and Lausanne was open to traffic.

Two rail tracks were consistently open to traffic from Olten to Lausanne from 4 September 1862.

An attempt is currently being made to reduce the traveling time of the InterCity trains between Lausanne and Bern to 55 minutes by using a tilt compensation system in order to be able to integrate Lausanne as a hub in the regular interval timetable.