West Switzerland Company

The West Switzerland Company (French: Compagnie de l'Ouest-Suisse, OS) was a railway company in Switzerland, formed 1854 and absorbed into the Western Swiss Railway in 1872. The OS built a railway network in western Switzerland and connected with France via Geneva in 1858, although Switzerland's first railway was the French Strasbourg–Basel Railway (French: Chemin de fer de Strasbourg à Bâle), which connected Basel with Strasbourg, France in 1844.

In 1854, the Company of West Switzerland gained a concession from the canton of Vaud for the construction of a railway line from Lausanne to Yverdon, with a proposal to continue via Payerne and Murten to Bern. The extension of the route past Yverdon was delayed by the Oron rail dispute (German: Oronbahnkonfliktes)—a dispute between the canton of Fribourg and Vaud over the route of the railway between Bern and Lausanne. Fribourg sought a route that passed through the city of Fribourg rather than along a flatter and cheaper alignment further west and was able to delay the railway because the route through Payerne and Murten had to pass through the canton of Fribourg. A route through Fribourg was finally agreed in 1857.

In May 1855 it opened the line from Bussigny-près-Lausanne to Yverdon and on 1 July 1855 from Bussigny to Morges via Renens as part of the Jura foot line. On 5 May 1856, the company opened two new sections, Renens to Lausanne and the connecting curve from Morges to Bussigny.

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