TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

As previously announced, I’ve been on vacation in my native country of Switzerland for four weeks recently. I just got back last Thursday in fact. I think not many people will disagree if I say that Switzerland’s public transportation network is far superior than that of California or anywhere else in the United States (if you do disagree with that statement, please leave a comment and tell me why …).

During these four weeks (which were spent mainly visiting family and friends all over the country and doing a couple sightseeing and shopping trips here and there), I’ve really come to appreciate the convenience of a comprehensive public transportation network again. Well, maybe I should say I’ve come to appreciate a country that was built based on the premise of having a comprehensive public transportation network - where one really is not expected to have a private car. Things are close together, people actually live in or close to the city centers. Buses and trains are scheduled to connect to each other and run frequently (which means at least once an hour, often more).

On the other hand here in California, everything is terribly spread out - it is very difficult to get anywhere (with some exceptions) without using a car for transportation. I’m personally lucky enough to live in biking distance from my workplace and we deliberately picked our home so it would be close to our daughter’s school (which, happy coincidence, happens to be in the same city as my workplace …). But this seems to be a rare case I think…

While in Switzerland, we purchased an all-month pass (”General Abonnement”) that allowed us to use pretty much all the rail, bus (urban and cross-country), tram/streetcar, boat, etc. services of the country. Basically, any public transportation - with the exception of some mountain railroads and aerial tramways. Basically, you just walk to the next bus stop or station and get on the train. You don’t need to get separate tickets for everything. Also, the ticket is valid on any train or bus - no reservation required. You just get on and go …

The following is a list of links to official and inofficial timetable pages of rail operators all over the world. Please let me know if you know any that are not listed.

to be continued …

Just returned from a 4 week trip to Switzerland - it was a family vacation, so I didn’t really do any real railfanning, but we traveled car-less, which is no problem at all in Switzerland and therefore I rode a lot of trains anyway. We got back last Thursday night and today, we did a quick trip on Caltrain to Menlo Park to have brunch, etc….

First impression after getting on the train here and feeling it start? Boy these things are slow … and bumpy. Note that it was an old gallery car trainset, so not the newer Bombardier bilevels. I mean, if you look at the track, it looks very straight and smooth. How can these things ride so badly? And the acceleration is terrible … I really hope that they will be able to push through the new crash standards that they’re shooting for so that when they (Caltrain) electrify the line, they will be able to buy nice modern off-the-shelf (European) EMUs … something like this one maybe:

Greetings from Switzerland - where I am currently on vacation … So posting will be light … Thanks and “see” you soon!

Update: More pictures of Swiss Trains are here.