Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe

I live in the Netherlands, where we have some pretty great trains. But there's a country in Europe that does trains better. Much better, in fact.

Switzerland has some of the best trains in the entire world - second, perhaps, only to Japan. What makes these trains so good? And what is it like to actually ride them?

The Slowest Express Train in the World - The Glacier Express

NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):

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References and Additional Reading

The integrated timetable of Switzerland

Watching the Swiss: A network approach to rural and exurban public transport

Live map of the Swiss Railways Network

Trafimage - Live Swiss Railway Punctuality

How Punctual is SBB?

SBB Facts and Figures - Punctuality

Are Swiss trains becoming less punctual, pricier and more dangerous?

This video contains images and video licensed from Getty Images.

[Sealdrop]

as a swiss person: last week my train was delayed for 19 seconds and i haven't recovered from that eversince

[berndbrotify]

I've been travelling with a Swiss train a few weeks ago, and the train service was suddenly interrupted because of a power outage in the next valley. The conductor apologized and told us to wait for the replacement bus at the next station, but couldn't tell us when it would arrive. The bus was there within a few minutes (somewhere in a tiny village in the mountains), drove us to the next station behind the interruption, where another train was waiting for us to continue the journey. And what can I say, we even arrived 1 minute ahead of schedule at my final destination.
Had this happened to me in my home country Germany, I'd probably still be waiting for that replacement bus.

[chrisoffersen]

Can we take a minute to appreciate the people who created an algorithm to synchronize trains over a whole country on a dense network often sharing single rails? Just…. Wow

[luxfer]

I live in Switzerland and yesterday I needed to get home from Locarno. One train was cancelled because of a technical issue on the overhead line (they actually informed you about that in the app), so I had to get another train, which was delayed only so that we could use it instead of the cancelled one. THEN they sent around personnel to personally ask EVERY passenger in a completely filled train in a very friendly manner which connection they wanted to use afterwards so they could delay that connection only for them. That plus a couple personal apologies coming through loudspeakers and information about the connections afterwards. They handled it so well and you felt actually taken care of because they will be giving you what you paid for. Thanks, SBB.

[LouisPeplerify]

I went to a Swiss school in Barcelona. Once we were visiting the LHC in the CERN in Geneve. We were a group of about 20 people with group reservation and at every connection they put a comment on the station screens "Swiss school Barelona here please". That is the level.

[blubberblubb]

Delays in Swiss trains are frequently rooted in delays abroad. To minimize this effect, the Swiss railway company will sometimes declare a train "canceled" while it is still approaching from Germany and provide its own replacement train for the Swiss part of that journey - which often arrives with minimal delay.

[DanixMRs]

As a Swiss I just realized that public transport is sometimes that I took for granted
It’s insane how our country is able to make all of the public transport work this well

[dp]

I live in the US. I am a five minute walk from the train station-- except it's been closed for decades. The town, never the less, celebrates its train history by encouraging businesses to decorate their mailboxes like train cars, because the train station literally made this town (it's closed now, did I mention that?). If I want to catch a passenger train, I have to drive 30 minutes to a very sketchy dangerous switching yard where I can go south at 6am, or north at 11:30 pm.

The train station a five minute walk from me is now on the historic registry and converted to boutique shops.

[soviut]

Notice how the smaller towns and villages aren't shabby and broke because people can get to them and don't need a car to get around.

[stevend]

This channel has completely radicalized me on infrastructure and public transit. I have become a nuisance to my friends and family who cannot hold a conversation with me for 5 minutes without me bringing up stroads or bike paths (not just lanes right next to loud cars with no barrier!) or train lines.

Thank you for opening my eyes to what civilization is supposed to look like. I will continue to spread the gospel and hope to open more eyes to the truth.

[PapaNoahful]

I'm swiss and I can say, it's very easy to forget how good we have it! After being used to the punctuality and the quick connections, traveling in other countries feels very rough

[KoriKitsune]

Got back to Switzerland with my friends from Europapark in Germany. Now in Olten, around midnight, it was the last train I had to take home. But that one got cancelled, whyever. It was one of these very rare moments, where no further information was given....
Still, I took another train which I know drives through the location I had to go. It was not supposed to stop there. But after explaining my situation to the ticket inspector, they called the driver and agreed to make an exceptional stop just for me and my friend. I was very happy that I did not have to spend the night outside, especially since I had no money left for a hotel. That one was a big plus for the SBB in my book.

[ourcolonel]

"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation." I love that quote.

[ConfusedAnt]

As a Swiss, I have to say that there is one huge problem with the Swiss transit network. Whenever I am travelling outside of Switzerland, I get annoyed at the local public transport system for not meeting my expectations (being it not being on time, not being clean, or just having a bad app).

[rwaldner]

What really blew my mind was when - standing at a station in Zürich - they announced that my S-Bahn train (I think it was the S10 up to Uetliberg) would be "40-50 seconds late". Here in Austria they don't even bother with announcements for delays under 10 minutes.

[seafog]

I'm from Japan so I know what's a pretty good transportation system is like (except Tokyo's population density) and yet this video alone made me want to visit Switzerland. Especially the way they are able to sync their train schedules which sounds impossible in Japan with so many train companies. The train apps here are pretty good though.

[salicyl]

11:17 Something to point out here: One reason as to why small delays dont massively impact the connections to other Public transit is because they are all in constant communication. If X Train arrives 5 minutes late, and a Bus was due to depart 4 min after arrival of the train, the Bus driver will get notified of the trains delay and wait 1-2min longer so people can make it onto the bus. I experienced this system first hand and its beautiful (Also, Buses automatically turn red lights green if they approach, which makes the bus transit very smooth and accurate)

[DanHauer]

Watching Not Just Bikes makes me want to cry for how backward my supposedly richest-country-on-Earth is.

[slimmargins]

One thing that I love the most about Swiss rail transit is that it is in general NOT reserved, unlike many trains in neighboring European countries. And since "standard" SBB tickets are valid on any train that day (this doesn't apply to discount tickets, however) then you can easily go about your day, and then whenever you want to catch your train, simply head to the station and take the next available one. And since there are usually a few different routes available, you can decide to stop off somewhere along the way and then simply take a later connection. There is never any stress about "missing" your reserved train and then having a ticket with no value, or needing to exchange it in a long line at the ticket counter. It simply works so well, you just don't worry about it.

[Nat-qfds]

14:54 definitely echo this sentiment. I'm Swiss, born and raised, and I spent 1 year in the US as an exchange student when I was a Teen.
I cannot emphasize how trapped I felt during that year.
My host family lived in a car-infested suburbia, meaning if I wanted to go *anywhere*, I had to ask a host parent or host sibling if they could drive me. Nothing was in walking distance, and public transport was virtually non-existent, even by North American Standards, I assume. Not that any bus station would've been in walking distance - upper middle-class suburbia, where the only option really is a car. When I compare what I usually do during a year to what I did during that year... I barely went anywhere when I was in the US. Because I didn't want to inconvenience my host family by constantly asking them for rides but had no other options available. It was one of my least favorite things during that year.
After that year, I finally understood why so many Teenagers are desperate to learn how to drive and to finance their own car. It literally is their only ticket to independent mobility. Heck, even I was considering learning how to drive just so I could independently get anywhere!
So, yeah. Us Swiss are really fortunate to have such a good public transport system. I definitely appreciate it.
(And before anyone guesses - yes, I was on the west coast during my exchange year.)