[Sparkyenos]

16 October 2019 at 17:13:22 #824225

We will be traveling to Switzerland next year. We will be purchasing the Swiss Travel Pass–1st class for 8 days.

One of the train trips we will be taking is: Zurich–Chur–St. Moritz; the other trip is Zermatt–Visp–Lausanne

1. Do I go on Rail Europe to find the schedules for these trips?

2. How do I get a first class seat on these trains——–I have read that I should just board a first class car and pick a seat——–I don’t understand how I will know which seat is already taken by a customer that has a reservation with that seat number listed on their ticket.

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[rockoyster]

16 October 2019 at 18:01:08 #923793

1. By far the best way to check timetables is using the SBB Mobile app (bit.ly/2ICIUHi). In the unlikely event you don’t have a device capable of running the app then you can use the timetable on the SBB website (bit.ly/2HH1U7B). If you are not familiar with using the timetable it will pay to first read the instructions on this page – http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable.

2. With the Swiss Travel Pass just jump on any train in a 1st Class Carriage and find a seat. 1st Class is rarely busy and you don’t need reservations on the trips you mention unless you are going from Chur to St Moritz on the Glacier Express which is not advisable as it is only a fraction of the whole route.

[Sparkyenos]

16 October 2019 at 18:30:14 #923794

Thanks will look into your response

[rockoyster]

16 October 2019 at 18:52:01 #923795

You might want to also read http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/reservations/howto use.

[Slowpoke]

16 October 2019 at 20:05:09 #923796

Hi Sparkyenos

A couple of refinements to Rockoyster’s succinct, accurate and responsive answers to your queries.

In train cars which have reserved seats, there is an indication near the window for those seats if they are reserved. In days past, it was a paper slip inserted in a small clip, with specifics of the reservation written on it. It might be for only one segment of a longer journey, or for a whole journey. These days, newer cars do it electronically, with a small screen near the window, describing a reservation, if any.

So, you can tell if a seat is reserved by looking there.

On certain excursion trains, such as the Glacier Express, seat reservations are necessary. On International trains, such as from The Netherlands through Germany and Switzerland to Italy, reservations are necessary outside Switzerland and often are used in Switzerland, as part of that longer journey.

As Rockoyster noted, the trains you have listed definitely do not require reservations. Some mountain excursion transport at and near St.Moritz has seasonal closures.

The way to think about the mainline Swiss rail system is that it resembles a city bus line.. Have your ticket (or pass) , hop on any train that day (tickets are generally good for all day), and if you miss one, wait for the next one.

Rockoyster likes the smartphone app. I use it while traveling, and it has become indispensable for quick checks of options, timing, connections, etc. while on the road…actually, on the train. It does a lot more including allowing you to buy tickets and have them on the phone to show a conductor.

But, for trip planning, I find the larger screen of a desktop or laptop computer to be more comfortable. I am considerably older than he, and set in my ways. He is much more willing to use newer technology, to good avail, I’m sure.

For example, I like to refer to websites by their actual URL, because they have a name which I can remember. He likes the shorter “short cut” URL’s as he has illustrated.

So, although I would start with the My Swiss Alps link that he provided,

http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable

because it has useful and necessary tips for getting he most from the timetable (such as the use of the “via” function), once I have internalized that guidance, I tend to seek a URL with a name:

http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.htm l.

No matter how you get to it, it is a very complete compendium of information about the entire train system, not simply a timetable. And, I find that viewing the station map for a large and complex station such as Zürich is best done on the largest screen possible.

Finally, because there are seasonal issue with the travel system and weather, we like to know your exact travel dates. It often allows us to provide a more detailed perspective, or make note of scheduled cableway maintenance during certain times of the year.

When are you traveling?

Slowpoke

[Annika]

17 October 2019 at 5:48:48 #923797

Hello Sparkyenos,

Your question on how to obtain 1st class seats has already been addressed in this thread: http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/traveling-ladies. We asked you to continue related questions in that particular thread several times now. Would you please do so? If you don’t know how to answer to a thread, adding new questions there, then please let uw know and we’ll help you out with that. The forum lay-out and readibility really benefit from one traveler’s related questions being in one thread, rather than spread over many separate threads. So again, I’d like to refer you back to http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/traveling-ladies for any follow-up questions. Thanks for your understanding :-)!