The valley rail line puts Saint-François-Longchamp within reach of the TGV network — no car required.
1From Platform to Piste
The Maurienne's long valley floor runs alongside one of France's busiest rail corridors, the historic Alpine route connecting Chambéry to Modane and on through the Fréjus tunnel to Italy. For travellers arriving car-free, this is good news: high-speed trains reach Chambéry from Paris in around three hours, and regional services continue east into the Maurienne, stopping at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, the valley town that acts as the natural jumping-off point for the resort.
From Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, Saint-François-Longchamp sits roughly 25 kilometres above — a climb up from the valley towards the Col de la Madeleine and the Lauzière massif that takes around 40 minutes by road. The station itself is well connected to the SNCF network, with direct or single-change services from Chambéry, Lyon, Grenoble and beyond. Eurostar passengers connecting via Paris, or travellers arriving at Geneva or Chambéry airports, can fold a regional train leg neatly into their journey.
The transfer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to the resort is the one link you'll need to plan. The resort operates a shuttle service during the ski season, timed around train arrivals — it's worth checking current schedules directly with the tourist office before you travel, as timings shift. Taxis from the station are a reliable fallback, and several operators serve the route; pre-booking is sensible at peak weekends. In summer the logistics are slightly looser, but the train remains equally useful: the resort is cooler than the valley floor, and the ride up gives a first proper view of the terrain you've come to walk or ride.
Arriving by train means finishing the journey up the mountain with luggage and no car — which, once you're settled into a village small enough to walk in under ten minutes, turns out to be no hardship at all. The Maurienne below repays a day's exploration in its own right; the train makes that easy too.