I had a VIP front seat on Golden Pass 7 April 2019

I just wanted to put this out there, I don't know if it helps or not.

I just got back from a trip to Italy and Switzerland.

One of the things I did was take the Golden Pass from Montreux to Interlaken. I did this same trip about 2 years ago and managed to reserve a front seat on the Panoramic style coaches. This year I understood between construction and refurbishment that you can not reserve the front 2 rows online. I reserved a seat in the front car then the morning of my trip I went to the train station and talked with a real nice lady.

I understood her to say the coaches were being refurbished, but she called someone about my train and told me that it was in fact going to have the big windshield style coaches but she still was unable to reserve a seat for me. Her suggestion was to get there 25 minutes before scheduled departure and find the conductor to see if they would either swap my seat reservation or charge me the difference between my reservation and the front row reservation (I think it might be 8 euros difference, not sure). I ended up invited a mother and daughter to come up there and enjoy the view also, this was their first time on the train and loved it. The 3 of us had the front 2 rows to ourselves and there were either 2 or 4 others in the front car. The weather was particularly good but the view out the windshield made it a little better.

I don't know if these are the newer cars or not, the one I had 2 years ago was more rounded and they had the more rounded one on the back of this train, but the front was more squared off. I attached a couple of photos.

Thank you to the MySwissAlps people for all their help, I had another great time in Switzerland staying in Montreux and Wengen and travel throughout.

That's a great view. Thanks

Wow that is an awesome way to travel..like being the train driver but much better.

Thankyou for sharing your photo's and information Spaulus69.

I head off in June and doing the same trip,

Cheers Jacqui in Australia

Cool. That's definitely a new look carriage. Thanks for sharing.

A very helpful post.

Thanks

Slowpoke

Hmm, to me it looks exactly like many years ago when I did a ride in those panoramic coaches. I'm not sure what kind of upgrade they are working on though, a simple renewal or complete overhaul? We'll see. Anyway, it's a very nice way to enjoy the Golden Pass line.

What a great way to ride! Assume these are second class coaches with an upgrade, correct? Kind of like grabbing a bulkhead seat in an airplane (now an upgrade), but the advantage is a bit different!

Thanks for sharing. Good to know.

Mike J

If not mistaken you have to have a 1st class ticket and then reserve the VIP seats. The lady and daughter that I shared the front car with had 2nd class tickets so they had to pay the difference between 1st and 2nd class plus the seat reservation.