Seetal

Today I covered a lot of stations around the Seetal area. First, I took the train from Dietikon to Wohlen via Bremgarten, which is one of those half train half tram lines.

Next, I covered the line from Lenzburg to Rotkreuz (riding from Wohlen to Lenzburg, just to immediately turn around again). From there, the S1 took me to Sursee via Luzern, along the Sempachersee.

Traveling further north to Zofingen and then turning east with the S28 to Lenzburg, I completed a circle around the Seetal area. With a nice sunset to accompany the journey, I took the Seetalbahn to Luzern. This was a lot of zig-zag across the region… Back in Zurich there was an S-Bahn wishing everyone a nice weekend, which I found very nice of it.

Gruyères

Today we spent some time in the area around Gruyères. We started with a visit of the Cailler factory in Broc. When arriving in Bern, one often hears announcements for a train going to Broc-Chocolatier, which I always found funny. Felt like something very Swiss to have a direct train going from the capital to a chocolate factory.

The exhibition itself I didn’t like that much. It felt a lot like corporate propaganda, where they spent a lot of time telling the visitors how well they treat the milk and cocoa farmers and that they make sure to only use the finest ingredients. Sure…

For lunch we took the bus to Gruyères. It’s a very nice old village but it’s very touristic, though surprisingly it felt less touristic compared to Zermatt. We visited the H.R. Giger museum. I expected the museum to have many more sculptures, it consisted mostly of pictures. A lot of them felt very similar, but it was still interesting to look at. Next to the train station there was also the cheese dairy where the produce the Gruyères cheese, though we didn’t visit this exhibition as well.

On the way back we took the detour via Palézieux to collect some more stations. I always thought Palézieux was a somewhat relevant city, but it turns out it’s basically just a train station in the middle of nowhere. I guess it’s a somewhat important exchange node which is why all the long-distance trains between Bern and Lausanne stop there. But given the good connections, I would have expected for some buildup to happen around the train stations. But it’s just fields right next to the tracks on one side, and only a few houses on the other side.

Zermatt

Today I went to Zermatt with a friend. The weather was lovely and we had lunch with a beautiful view of the Matterhorn.

On the way up from Visp there was a very sudden stop of the train on the open track, followed by a long pause. For at least 15 minutes the train was unable to continue due to some technical issues, we already thought we had to walk up the rest of the way. Luckily, the train then suddenly decided to work again and we reached Zermatt with some delay.

While the town looked nice, it also somehow felt a bit like an „amusement park“, where most things looked like mostly being for tourists and it didn’t feel like there were people actually living there. And of course there were a large number of tourists all across the town.

On the way back we stopped in Spiez to have dinner right next to the Thunersee. With the sunset the mountains turned red and gave a very nice scenery for dinner. We also saw the Sigriswiler Rothorn (to the left of the Niederhorn), where we recently filmed a Skyrim music video in a cave.

Einsiedeln

Today’s train ride brought me to Einsiedeln. The weather was very nice and I spent some time walking across the Silhsee. Very lovely views to be had.

On the way back, I stopped in Arth-Goldau, where the train to mount Rigi leaves. I didn’t have time to go on Rigi today, but as the train to the top is included in my travelcard, I will go there at some point.

In total, I have already visited 16% of all stations in Switzerland. However, most of them were around Zurich and eastern Switzerland which is quite close to home. The stations further away, for example in the French speaking part of Switzerland, will take a bit more time.

Waldshut

Today’s journey led me all the way to Germany. Turns out, it’s not very far…

From Zurich, I rode the train to Waldshut via Baden, where I spent some time at the Rhein. It was a very lovely spot right next to the river. On the way back, I completed the rail lines to Bülach and then onward to Winterthur.

Aadorf

Today, I took the long way from Zurich to St. Gallen, taking the train up to Schaffhausen and then following the S1 all the way along the Bodensee. It’s quite a nice route.

On the way back one of the stops was Aadorf, which I found quite funny as when talking about illustrative scenarios in the railway context (e.g. for interlockings, or generally the train operation procedures), we often use Adorf and Bstadt as examples. That A(a)dorf exists in real life is quite ironic.

Rapperswil to Schaffhausen

Today I traveled a bit on the S-Bahn Zurich. Starting at Zurich HB, I first took the S6 to Uetikon, followed by the S7 to Rapperswil, completing the route along the Goldküste. After a short hop to Rüti ZH, I rode the S26 all the way to Winterthur, completing the first S-Bahn line around Zurich. It’s quite a nice route.

From Winterthur, the S24 brought me up to Thayngen, crossing off the northern most train station in Switzerland. Back in Schaffhausen, I then rode the S9 all the way to Uster, completing the second S-Bahn in Zurich and also completing my day of riding random trains around Zurich.

Appenzell and a Surprise Cog Railway

Today, I ticked off a large section of the network of the Appenzeller Bahnen. Starting in St. Gallen, I made my way to Trogen, where I immediately turned around on the same train to get to the other end of the S21. On the map there was a short section branching off from the S21, from Gais to Altstätten Stadt. I didn’t think much of it, but as it looked like a short detour which I could do while I was there anyways, I decided to go to Altstätten for Dinner.

Now in the S24, once we passed Stoss AR I was very surprised when the train turned out to be a cog railway and we made our way slowly into the valley. It was a very lovely view across the area around Altstätten SG and the cog railway was very cool to ride. I was aware of other cog railways in the area, e.g. the S25 and S26, but not having researched the routes much, the S24 was a nice little surprise.

After dinner, I made my way back up the hill with the last train of the day, continuing to Appenzell and then back towards Zurich via Gossau SG. I have now already completed two lines (S21, S24) and one is almost complete (S23), only missing the part between Appenzell and Wasserauen, for which I was too late in the day. According to my tracking sheet, I have now already visited 24.6% of the stations in Eastern Switzerland and 3.2% overall.

Progress Tracking

To keep track of the stations I have visited I am using an amazing site called viaduct. In addition, I have now created a spreadsheet to make some custom diagrams and statistics. You can find some diagrams here.

Luckily, the federal office of transport provides a list of all stations in Switzerland as well as a list of all lines in Switzerland. As I am mostly interested in train stations and lines, I have filtered them accordingly. I still keep track of the other stations and lines out of interest, but I don’t expect to make much progress on them.

After filtering, we are left with 1’738 train stations and 385 train lines. So I just have to visit 4.76 stations per day on average, in order to visit them all within a year.

For a train station to count I just need to have been on a train which stops at that station. For lines I distinguish between having traveled on a line and having „completed“ a line. For traveling I just need to ride a train running on the line at least one stop. To complete a line, I need to travel the whole line from start to finish, on a train designated with that line number. This doesn’t need to be in one go, this can be interrupted and completed with multiple journeys. Completing a line is mostly a side quest, but might still be fun to do.

The train stations and all the lines are also split into 11 different regions so I can keep track of my progress for each one individually.

The spreadsheet would allow me to also track bus and tram stations, but as there are 23’973 of them in Switzerland, I don’t think I’ll make much progress on them and I might not bother keeping track of all of them. We’ll see.