Swiss Railways

Having been very impressed with the French railway sysytem last year, I have to say I am really impressed at not only the Swiss railway service in general, but also the ingenuity and engineering when you look at some of their railway systems.

First thing to note, is the frequency of trains on the inter town links and how reliable they are. Unlike British trains, they always run on time and they seem to have more space and leg room. The other thing about Switzerland is the number of lines, it is almost like Britain during the pre Dr. Beeching era. For example along the north side of lake Geneva there are two lines at varying heights of the valley, one destined for Visp and Brig and other higher one heading for the north.

Rail Prices are also very reasonable and then there are the incentives such as the monthly half price rail cards that you can you use on most public transport in Switzerland with the exception of the local buses. At 99 SFR, this represents seriously good value for money if you are visiting Switzerland as a tourist.

Then we come to the cog railways that wind themselves up mountains. As a person coming from the UK, these types of Swiss railway are just amazing and a testament to the people who designed and built them. On our trip in Switzerland, we were lucky to experience one of these railways first hand as we travelled the excellent Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn line to Zermatt. The cog refers to a tertiary sprocket wheel system in the middle of the standard gauge railway line that allows the train to incline steep gradients with ease.

There are also trains that climb vertically up mountain sides such as the cable driven tunnel train at Zermatt which climbs about 600m in a mile to reach the Alpine retreat of Sunnega. Like nothing you have experienced in the UK, these trains have to be seen to be believed.

This entry was posted on Monday July 20th, 2009 at 3:00 PM and is filed under Places to Visit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.

Swiss Railways

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