Through its role as a discriminating factor in city accessibility, high-speed rail forms a part of metropolization strategies, as shown by the anamorphoses produced by Strasbourg’s Image, City, Environment Laboratory (GIP-Reclus 2000). As faster speed imposes selectivity (Ollivro 2000), high-speed rail networks are designed primarily on a national or even international scale, to directly connect major hubs in an urban structure. Therefore, they are a key positioning strategy for intermediate cities trying to capture the network, in a logic that resembles “ransom economics”, identified by B. Lepetit (1986) in his analysis of eighteenth Century roads. In the analysis of networks (Curien and Dupuy 1997), this notion of capturing is characterized by three complementary yet distinct dimensions related to:Coalitions of local and/or regional authorities seek to weigh in on these different components through interactions with the railway operator and the State. Their aim is to influence where high-speed rail travels and the stops it makes. We can also refer to this as territorial appropriation, which intersects urban project development, a marker of the metropolitan ambition of these intermediate cities. These territories look to develop their spaces in a more or less synergistic relationship, through a process of congruity, with the arrival of high-speed rail.