Initially, the corporation was a groupement d'intérêt économique (GIE: "group of (shared) economic interest") between SNCF and SBB CFF FFS whose goal was the creation of a TGV service between Gare de Lyon (Paris) and Lausanne/Bern.

Today, the corporation is officially a limited company according to French law (Société par actions simplifiée / SAS[2]).

[3] Starting in mid-1961, the route between Paris and Lausanne was operated by the Trans Europ Express Cisalpin trains, which continued on to Milan.

During the winter of 1995–1996, a single roundtrip per day was extended from Lausanne to Brig to stop at stations serving ski resorts in the Rhône Valley.

On 28 September 1997 the service was slightly reorganized and rebranded as Ligne de Cœur, with new livery applied to the rolling stock.

After the opening of the TGV Est in June 2007, Lyria service between Paris and Zurich began using the newly constructed line instead of the previous route, passing through Strasbourg, Colmar, Mulhouse and Basel.

[4],[5] In February 2011, service improvements were announced, with a fleet of 19 TGV POS trains offering increased frequencies.

[4],[5] In 2011, with the completion of the LGV Rhin-Rhône, travel time between Paris and Basel/Zurich has been reduced by 30 minutes, passing through Dijon, Mulhouse and Basel.