Switzerland

I recently spent two weeks in Switzerland, travelling by rail. Lets start a discussion on the Swiss rail system. I was VERY impressed.

well i havent been there for 15 years . I did find the mountain railways interesting . the rest was abit too clinical for my liking .
No doubt it is a very efficent operation , at least as far as timekeeping goes .

Don31 wrote:I recently spent two weeks in Switzerland, travelling by rail. Lets start a discussion on the Swiss rail system. I was VERY impressed.

Many citizens and residents have an annual ticket that allows them unlimited travel. I think it probable that a higher proportion of people make train journeys there than any other country.

There is hostility to using the scarce flat land for more motorways. Also there is hostility to allowing foreign lorries to cross the country. To avoid this they are building two "Rolende Landstrasse" rail routes to take fully loaded trucks from Germany to Italy without turning their engines on. This includes two large bore tunnels through the Alps.

The timetable has been cast so that you can go anywhere with the minimum of connection times where change of bus or train is necessary. (I wish we could try this in Britain).

I am not sure if it still the case that every station still has a freight terminal, but it was true until quite recently.

george matthews wrote: The timetable has been cast so that you can go anywhere with the minimum of connection times where change of bus or train is necessary. (I wish we could try this in Britain).

The problem in bigger countries are the larger distances for the InterCity-Services and the larger speed differences between the trains.

In Germany and Great Britan par example the speeds varies from 100km/h to 225/230km/h on mainlines (ecxept on HSL)

In Switzerland, Belgium or the Netherlands where such an strong traffic on rails is managed the speeds varies only from 100km/h to 120-140km/h on mainlines (except on HSL).

This means a higher capacity on the lines.