Audio Series: ch.tours Thematic Guides Estimated Duration: 30 minutes Style: Engaging narrator voice for audio playback
Introduction
Welcome to ch.tours. I'm your narrator, and if you're listening to this on a Swiss train, you have chosen the perfect setting. Swiss railways are not just a transportation system -- they are a national institution, a source of deep pride, and one of the most remarkable engineering achievements in the world. In a country where nearly two-thirds of the territory is mountainous, the Swiss have built one of the densest, most punctual, and most heavily used railway networks on the planet. Every day, over 1.3 million passengers travel on Swiss Federal Railways alone, and the average Swiss citizen takes the train roughly seventy times a year -- more than any other nationality in Europe. From the first locomotive that chugged between Zurich and Baden in 1847, to the Gotthard Base Tunnel that opened in 2016 as the longest railway tunnel in the world, this is the story of how Switzerland put itself on rails.
Segment 1: The Beginning -- The Spanish Bread Railway (1847)
Switzerland came relatively late to the railway age. Britain opened its first public railway in 1825, and by the 1840s, railway networks were spreading rapidly across Britain, France, and the German states. Switzerland, with its mountains, its political fragmentation, and its conservative rural cantons, lagged behind.
The first Swiss railway line opened on August 9, 1847, connecting Zurich to Baden -- a distance of just twenty-three kilometres. The locals nicknamed it the Spanisch-Broetli-Bahn, the "Spanish Bread Railway," because one of its main uses was transporting a type of puff pastry called Spanisch-Broetli from the bakeries of Baden to the breakfast tables of Zurich. The journey took about thirty-three minutes.
The line was built by a private company, the Schweizerische Nordbahn, and it was an immediate success. But it highlighted a fundamental problem: who should build and operate Switzerland's railways? The liberal cantons favoured private enterprise. The more cautious cantons worried about foreign capital and loss of control. The debate raged for years, and in the meantime, a chaotic patchwork of private railway companies sprang up, each building lines to serve its own interests, with little coordination between them.
Segment 2: Alfred Escher and the Railway Boom (1850s -- 1870s)
No figure looms larger in the early history of Swiss railways than Alfred Escher. Born in 1819 into a wealthy Zurich family, Escher was a politician, entrepreneur, and visionary who almost single-handedly drove the expansion of Switzerland's railway network. He founded the Schweizerische Nordostbahn (Swiss Northeastern Railway) in 1853, the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (now Credit Suisse) in 1856 to finance railway construction, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) to train the engineers who would build the lines.
Escher's most ambitious project was the Gotthard Railway, connecting northern and southern Switzerland through a tunnel under the Gotthard massif. He founded the Gotthardbahn company in 1871 and spent years negotiating financing from Switzerland, Italy, and the German Empire. The project was the great engineering challenge of its age, and Escher threw himself into it with relentless energy.
But the Gotthard project also consumed him. Cost overruns, political opposition, and the sheer difficulty of the engineering took their toll. Escher was forced out of the Gotthardbahn directorship in 1878, embittered and exhausted. He died in 1882, just months before the tunnel he had championed was completed. A statue of Escher stands today in front of Zurich's Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station -- a fitting tribute to the man who, more than anyone else, built Switzerland's railway network.
Segment 3: The Gotthard Rail Tunnel -- A Monument in Stone (1872 -- 1882)
The Gotthard Rail Tunnel, when it opened on May 22, 1882, was the longest railway tunnel in the world at 15 kilometres. Its construction was a triumph of engineering and a tragedy of human cost.
The driving force behind the tunnel's construction was the engineer Louis Favre, a Genevan who won the construction contract in 1872. Favre promised to complete the tunnel in eight years for a fixed price of 47.8 million francs. It was a recklessly ambitious commitment. The work was done almost entirely by hand, with workers using dynamite, compressed-air drills, and brute force to bore through the Alpine granite. Conditions were hellish: temperatures inside the tunnel reached thirty-four degrees Celsius, the air was thick with dust and dynamite fumes, and rockfalls were frequent.
Workers came from across Europe, but the majority were Italian. They were paid poorly, housed in overcrowded barracks, and subjected to brutal working conditions. Strikes were suppressed. Diseases, particularly a parasitic infection called anchylostomiasis, ravaged the workforce. By the time the tunnel was completed, 199 workers had died, and many more were permanently injured or disabled.
Louis Favre himself did not live to see the tunnel's completion. He collapsed and died of a heart attack inside the tunnel on July 19, 1879, at the age of fifty-three, during an inspection of the works.
When the two headings finally met on February 29, 1880, the alignment was nearly perfect: a lateral deviation of just thirty-three centimetres over fifteen kilometres. The Gotthard Rail Tunnel was a wonder of the age and remained the longest railway tunnel in the world until the Simplon Tunnel surpassed it in 1906.
Segment 4: Nationalisation and the Birth of SBB (1898 -- 1902)
By the late nineteenth century, the patchwork of private railway companies was becoming increasingly problematic. Service was uneven, competition was wasteful, and there was growing public sentiment that the railways -- as essential infrastructure -- should be publicly owned. A national referendum on the railway question was held on February 20, 1898, and 67.9 percent of voters approved the nationalisation of the major railway companies.
The Swiss Federal Railways -- Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB) in German, Chemins de Fer Federaux (CFF) in French, and Ferrovie Federali Svizzere (FFS) in Italian -- was formally established on January 1, 1902. The new national railway company took over the Jura-Simplon Railway, the Central Railway, the Northeastern Railway, and the United Swiss Railways, among others.
Nationalisation brought standardisation, investment, and improved service. Over the following decades, SBB electrified its network -- Switzerland was a pioneer in railway electrification, driven by its abundant hydroelectric power and its lack of domestic coal. The first electrified main line, the Loetschberg, opened in 1913. By 1960, the entire SBB network was electrified, making it one of the first fully electric national railways in the world.
Segment 5: Mountain Railways -- Conquering the Vertical
While SBB handled the main lines, a parallel universe of mountain railways was developing in the Alps. These narrow-gauge lines, rack railways, funiculars, and cable cars opened up the mountains to tourism and transformed remote Alpine communities.
The Rigi Railway, which opened in 1871, was the first mountain cog railway in Europe. It carried tourists from the shores of Lake Lucerne to the summit of the Rigi, 1,797 metres above sea level, using a rack-and-pinion system that allowed trains to climb gradients too steep for conventional adhesion railways.
The Jungfrau Railway, opened in stages between 1896 and 1912, is perhaps the most famous mountain railway in the world. Built by the industrialist Adolf Guyer-Zeller, it climbs from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch at 3,454 metres -- the highest railway station in Europe. Most of the line runs through a tunnel bored through the solid rock of the Eiger and the Monch, with windows carved into the Eiger's north face at the stations of Eigerwand and Eismeer, offering vertiginous views into the abyss below.
The Gornergrat Railway above Zermatt, opened in 1898, was the first fully electric cog railway in Switzerland. It climbs to 3,089 metres, offering spectacular views of the Matterhorn and the Monte Rosa massif. The Pilatus Railway, with a maximum gradient of 48 percent, is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world.
Switzerland today has more than sixty mountain railways, funiculars, and cog railways, along with hundreds of aerial cable cars and gondolas. They are not relics of the past; many have been modernised with the latest technology, and they remain essential to both tourism and local transportation.
Segment 6: The Glacier Express and the Bernina Express -- Scenic Masterpieces
Two Swiss rail journeys have achieved legendary status among travellers worldwide. The Glacier Express, running between Zermatt and St. Moritz, covers 291 kilometres in about eight hours, crossing 291 bridges and passing through 91 tunnels. It is marketed as "the slowest express train in the world," and the journey is less about speed than about the staggering Alpine scenery that unfolds outside the panoramic windows.
The route passes through the Rhine Gorge, known as the "Swiss Grand Canyon," and climbs over the Oberalp Pass at 2,033 metres, the highest point on the journey. The Glacier Express has been running since 1930, though the route and equipment have been updated many times since.
The Bernina Express, operated by the Rhaetian Railway, runs from Chur (or Davos) to Tirano in Italy, crossing the Bernina Pass at 2,253 metres -- the highest railway crossing in the Alps without the use of a cog railway. The line climbs and descends using a series of loops, spirals, and viaducts that are masterpieces of railway engineering.
The most famous structure on the route is the Landwasser Viaduct, a 65-metre-high, 136-metre-long curved stone viaduct that sweeps around a bend and plunges directly into a tunnel carved into the cliff face. It is one of the most photographed railway structures in the world. The Rhaetian Railway's Albula and Bernina lines were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, recognised as outstanding examples of railway engineering in a high-mountain landscape.
Segment 7: The Taktfahrplan -- Swiss Precision in Motion
Swiss railway punctuality is legendary, and it is no accident. It is the product of a deliberate, meticulously planned system called the Taktfahrplan, or clock-face schedule. Introduced systematically in 1982, the Taktfahrplan means that trains on every route run at regular, repeating intervals -- typically every hour, half hour, or quarter hour -- at the same minutes past the hour, every hour, all day.
This sounds simple, but the execution is extraordinarily complex. The Taktfahrplan is designed so that trains from different lines arrive at major junction stations at roughly the same time, allowing passengers to transfer quickly, and then depart again within a few minutes. This "pulse" system means that even remote villages with infrequent service are connected to the entire network with minimal waiting times.
The system requires extreme precision. Trains must arrive and depart within seconds of their scheduled times for the connections to work. SBB measures punctuality to the minute, and in recent years has consistently achieved on-time performance rates above 90 percent, with "on-time" defined as arriving within three minutes of the scheduled time.
The Mondaine railway clock, with its distinctive red second hand that pauses briefly at the top of each minute before sweeping forward, has become a symbol of Swiss punctuality worldwide. Designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1944, it was adopted as the official SBB station clock and later licensed to Apple for use in the iPad's clock app -- a deal that reportedly cost Apple twenty million dollars.
Segment 8: The Loetschberg and Simplon -- Tunnelling Through the Bernese Alps
The Gotthard was not Switzerland's only great tunnelling achievement. The Simplon Tunnel, connecting Brig in the Valais with Iselle in Italy, was completed in two stages: the first bore opened in 1906 at 19.8 kilometres, making it the world's longest railway tunnel and overtaking the Gotthard. A second bore was completed in 1921. The construction was led by the engineers Alfred Brandt and Karl Brandau and faced even more extreme conditions than the Gotthard, including torrential underground water flows and temperatures approaching fifty-six degrees Celsius.
The Loetschberg Tunnel, completed in 1913, connected the Bernese Oberland with the Valais through a 14.6-kilometre bore beneath the Loetschberg massif. A tragic accident during construction, on July 24, 1908, killed twenty-five workers when a section of the tunnel collapsed and was flooded with glacial gravel and water. The debris was never fully cleared, and the tunnel had to be rerouted around the obstruction.
A century later, the Loetschberg Base Tunnel opened in 2007 as a 34.6-kilometre flat route beneath the mountains, part of the NRLA (Neue Eisenbahn-Alpentransversale, or New Railway Link through the Alps) project to shift freight transport from road to rail. Together with the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the Loetschberg Base Tunnel has created a high-speed, flat-route rail corridor through the heart of the Swiss Alps.
Segment 9: The Gotthard Base Tunnel -- The Longest in the World (2016)
On June 1, 2016, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was officially opened after seventeen years of construction. At 57.1 kilometres, it is the longest and deepest railway tunnel in the world. Its two single-track tubes run beneath the Alps at a maximum depth of 2,300 metres below the mountain peaks above. Trains travel through the tunnel at speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour, and the crossing takes just twenty minutes -- compared to over an hour on the old mountain route.
The tunnel was built as part of Switzerland's NRLA programme, a national project approved by voters in a 1992 referendum. The total cost of the Gotthard Base Tunnel was approximately 12.2 billion Swiss francs. Over 2,600 workers were involved at peak construction, and the project produced 28.2 million tonnes of excavated rock, much of which was used to create artificial islands and shoreline in Lake Uri.
The tunnel's primary purpose is to increase rail freight capacity, reducing the number of heavy trucks crossing the Alps and shifting goods transport from road to rail. This reflects a fundamental Swiss policy commitment, enshrined in the constitution following a 1994 referendum, to protect the Alpine environment by limiting road transit.
The opening ceremony was a national event, attended by the leaders of Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. It was a moment of immense pride -- a demonstration that the small Alpine country could still achieve engineering feats that astonished the world.
Segment 10: The Swiss Travel System -- Trains, Buses, and Boats
Swiss public transport is not just about trains. The Swiss Travel System is an integrated network of trains, buses, boats, cable cars, and funiculars that covers the entire country with remarkable comprehensiveness. PostBus Switzerland, the bright yellow bus service operated by Swiss Post, runs over nine hundred routes, connecting even the most remote mountain villages to the railway network.
Lake steamers on Lake Lucerne, Lake Geneva, Lake Zurich, Lake Thun, Lake Brienz, and other Swiss lakes are not just tourist attractions but regular public transport services, integrated into the national timetable. You can use your Swiss Travel Pass or half-fare card on virtually all of them.
The integration is what makes the system remarkable. A single journey from, say, a village in the Engadin to a lakeside town on Lake Geneva might involve a PostBus, two trains, and a lake steamer, and the entire journey can be planned, timed, and ticketed as a seamless whole. The Swiss Travel Pass, available to visitors, offers unlimited travel on the entire network -- an investment that pays for itself within a day or two of active travel.
The SBB mobile app, which allows passengers to buy tickets, check timetables, and track trains in real time, has become one of the most-used apps in Switzerland. The country's commitment to public transport is also reflected in its infrastructure spending: Switzerland consistently invests more per capita in railway infrastructure than almost any other country in the world.
Segment 11: The Future -- Rail 2050 and Beyond
Switzerland is not resting on its laurels. The country's long-term transport strategy, known as the Strategic Development Programme for Railway Infrastructure (STEP), envisions continued expansion and improvement of the network through 2050 and beyond. Major projects include the expansion of the Zurich-Bern corridor, improvements to the Geneva rail hub, and the gradual upgrading of the entire network to handle more frequent, faster, and more comfortable services.
Autonomous trains, digital signalling, and predictive maintenance using artificial intelligence are all being developed and tested. SBB is also investing in sustainability: while Swiss railways are already among the greenest in the world, powered almost entirely by electricity from renewable sources (primarily hydroelectric), the goal is to achieve carbon neutrality across all operations.
The challenge of the last mile -- getting passengers from the train station to their final destination -- is being addressed through better integration with cycling infrastructure, car-sharing services, and on-demand shuttle buses. Several Swiss cities, including Zurich, Bern, and Basel, are investing heavily in expanding their tram networks, which feed passengers into the mainline rail system.
Switzerland's railways have always been about more than just getting from A to B. They are about connecting communities, protecting the environment, and making a small, mountainous country feel accessible and unified. That mission continues.
Segment 12: Closing Narration
From the Spanish Bread Railway of 1847 to the Gotthard Base Tunnel of 2016, the story of Swiss railways is a story of ambition, ingenuity, and an almost obsessive commitment to doing things right. These railways were carved through mountains, suspended over gorges, and threaded through landscapes of heart-stopping beauty. They were built at tremendous human cost and maintained with tireless precision. They transformed a fragmented, mountainous country into one of the most connected and accessible nations on Earth.
The next time your train glides into a Swiss station -- precisely on time, the doors opening with a quiet hiss -- take a moment to appreciate what lies behind that smooth arrival: nearly two centuries of engineering, planning, investment, and sheer determination. The Swiss rail network is not just infrastructure. It is a national achievement, and one of the great engineering marvels of the modern world.
Thank you for joining me on this journey through Swiss railway history. I'm your narrator from ch.tours. Enjoy the ride, wherever it takes you. Safe travels.
This audio script is part of the ch.tours thematic audio series. For more guided experiences across Switzerland, visit ch.tours.