TRAIN # 47 – 16:10 Budapest to Zurich (Continued)
I finally woke at 08:15 to find three young girls sitting in the corner of our compartment chatting in French. I had to scramble over them in order to get to the bathroom. The train was now only fifteen minutes out of Zurich. I managed to get dressed and ready in time.
I had slept well, almost too well. I had been awake for a couple of ticket checks and the Swiss border but had fallen back to sleep quickly. I couldn’t remember the girls coming into the compartment at all. My friend confirmed he was well rested too.
Outside it looked like a lovely morning. It also all looked typically Swiss to me. The sun was shining on a lake; there were large mountains in the background and little chalet-type cottages in the foreground. We arrived in to Zurich bang on time at 08:31.
ZURICH
We found luggage lockers quickly. Then, just as soon as we had put the rucksacks containing our waterproofs into storage, it started to rain hard. We sat at the station eating more Hungarian cheese rolls with salami before we decided to brave the rain and go for a quick wet stroll around the city.
We were keen to walk down Bahnhofstrasse because it had been feted as the most expensive street in Europe. We thought this would be cool because Newland Avenue in Hull where we did our food shopping at university had been named as the least expensive. In the end, we agree that the Swiss street was not that impressive. We ran along it in the pouring rain and ended up in the Gross Munster church trying to shelter.
We went across the road to a small shopping arcade and sheltered again. Zurich had three famous churches and when the rain had eased a little, we went off in search of the other two, Fraumunster and St. Peterskirche, and found them.
When the rain began again we sheltered in a model shop, admiring all the beautiful but expensive models they had on display. We went around to Neumarket and then past the little Polybahn rack railway which climbed the hill.
Back at the station, we calculated that we had enough funds for one coffee and one cream bun which we would share. I then managed to spill most of the hot drink over myself. We were approached by a couple of young Swiss lads dressed as punks who asked us for money. We told them that they had the wrong people; we were about to go to Italy just to get a cheap meal.
TRAIN # 48 – 11:04 Zurich to Milan
Having slept well, we were full of energy and it now seemed a little frustrating that we would be spending the whole afternoon and evening on trains. This was the part of the itinerary where the scenery out of the window would be part of the attraction. We would go down to Milan via the Gotthard route and then return to Lausanne via the Simplon.
The 11:04 from Zurich would be hauled to the Swiss / Italian border by one of SBB’s workhorses, a Re 4/4 or Re 420 Class Locomotive. Over 300 of the type were produced between 1964 and 1985 and they seemed to be used on many of the trains we saw.
We shared our compartment with a German lady. We helped her on the train with her bags and then got chatting. She was a retired teacher and was off to San Remo for a long holiday. She was very interesting to talk to and told us some great stories about her former pupils.
The scenery was outstanding. Although it would have been even better had it not been pouring with rain. The track spiralled upwards and then passed through the Gotthard Tunnel (15km) and then descended to Chiasso, the Italian border station.
We paused for 20 minutes and in addition to immigration and customs formalities, there was also a locomotive swap partially due to the voltage change. The 15kV AC SBB Re 420 was replaced by an FS (Italian State Railways) 3kV DC Class 656. This was another workhorse, with 461 examples of the articulated design being produced between 1975 and 1989. I had already seen a lot of them during our earlier visit to Italy.
With all the checks complete and new motive power installed, we continued onwards down to Milan. We arrived back in the cavernous Centrale station ten minutes in ritardo at 15:50. The little snack bar on the concourse had run out of Pizza, so we went out of the station to a Wendy’s where a hamburger that had far too much lettuce in it cost 4000 lira.
We stocked up on supplies for the following day in Switzerland, obtaining more bread, cheese and ham to keep us going. We were running low on the Italian currency so we changed another £10 and then immediately blew 2000 lira on Duplo chocolate and Mars bars.
TRAIN #49 – 17:15 Milan to Lausanne
The 17:15 was departing in ritardo. That had been no great surprise of course. We had expected it to be in ritardo as it was arriving from Venice. To be fair it was only around twenty minutes behind. We sat in a compartment with an Italian couple and two small boys and a pushchair. One of the boys seemed to be intent on dismantling the pushchair.
As the sun set we wound our way back towards Switzerland, now taking a more westerly route. The mountains slowly built up and it was obvious the train was climbing. We sat at Domodossola for about twenty minutes whilst they completed customs and immigration and swapped the locomotives back over. Then we were off into the Simplon Tunnel (19.8km). The two small boys were now climbing on the luggage racks.
At Montreux, a few stops before the terminus, the train was swamped by what seemed like the entire Swiss Army. I figured they must have been on some kind of exercise. They crowded in the corridors but didn’t really disturb us. At twenty to ten we arrived at Lausanne.
The waiting room at Lausanne was nice and warm. We got a packet of paprika crisps and a Snickers out of the vending machine and then settled down to wait for our next train. There were scenic photographs on the wall which were back lit, something I had never seen before. The station lavatory was less advanced though, just a hole in the ground.
As we waited, we watched as a guy holding a carrier bag approached a young blonde girl sat opposite us. He seemed very polite as he asked her three different questions in French. We had no idea what he asked but she answered simply “Non” to each one. He nodded each time and then as he walked away we saw that his bag contained nothing but a Marilyn Monroe jigsaw puzzle.
The bizarreness of this seemed to strike both of us in the same way. We knew we had had enough. We were both getting tired of the nomadic lifestyle. It was twenty days since I had slept in a proper bed. I started to wish I was at home, not sitting at some ungodly hour on a railway station in Switzerland with a bunch of weirdos.
TRAIN # 50 – 23:30 Lausanne to Dole
A bed at home was not in prospect however, nor even was a bed in Lausanne. Yet again we were attempting to go somewhere just so we could come back and hopefully sleep. Switzerland was too small for this, so we were popping over the border to France to give us a bit more distance to cover on the way back. We would board the Paris-bound overnight express and ride it for a few hours to Dole and then return on another train to the Swiss capital, Bern.
As we went out onto the platform for the arrival of the 23:30 there were a lot of drunken lads standing there singing. The train, a Venice to Paris express, came in and seemed to be already full. We feared the worst but somehow it absorbed everyone. We found an empty Corail compartment with a copy of the Sunday Times on one of the seats. As we were pulling out we noticed there was a rucksack on one of the racks and a few minutes later a young lad came into the compartment.
Forty Years Later….
- The Gotthard Tunnel is still open but has been largely surpassed by the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
- The Gotthard Base Tunnel (57km / 35.4 miles long) is the longest railway tunnel in the world.
- The fastest trains from Zurich to Milan now take 3 hours and 12 minutes.
- The Re 420 locomotives have largely been displaced from passenger duties on SBB, but are retained for freight.
- The E.656 locomotives have been retired from service.
- Wendy’s exited Italy in the early 1990s but is planning a return.
- I have not visited Zurich since 1984. I repeated the Milan to Lausanne trip via the Simplon Tunnel in the late 1990s, but so far have not returned to the Gotthard.
