I've been monitoring train fares for a while on bahn.de from germany into swtizerland from singen to tirano with a stop in Zurich. When I was looking before, the trains were all IC trains , something like this. With 3 connections.
https://imgur.com/hTv5scD
This week when i checked they all look like this with 5 connections , and the price is unresolved.
https://imgur.com/A1wg3LP
Does anyone know what this means, are the previous trains cancelled or full?
I take it you are looking at the seat61 Bernina Express hack. You are not telling us the date, so no way for us to double check. Perhaps there is track maintenance scheduled on the Singen-Zurich line and they are showing a work around.
I found it for June 13 by choosing a 19:32 departure from Singen with a 10 hour stopover in Zurich. 47.90 EUR departing Zurich at 6:38 on June 14.
PS, digging a little deeper on the SBB site, it appears that the 16;32 IC train from Singen to Zurich is not running Saturday and Sunday for 2 weekends, June 15,16 and 22,23.
Hi Sam
Yes using the seat61 method. I'm looking at 16 June with BE departing on 17 June or 23 June with BE departing 24 June.
But what if I had already brought the tickets earlier and there was track work? It was selling last week, only noticed it changed this week.
See my edit.
The thing is, you were never going to ride the train from Singen to Zurich anyway. That is part of the hack. It is not an airline ticket where you have to ride all the legs or the ticket gets cancelled. When you board the train in Zurich the next day, nobody is checking that you rode the previous train the day before, and they don't care. You have a valid ticket for that train so everybody is happy.
Oh thanks, can you give me the link where you found the interruptions?
Is there any way I can still use the hack for these dates? I didn't buy the tickets yet when it was available before, thought i still had time.
I just went to https://www.sbb.ch/en/buying/pages/fahrplan/fahrplan.xhtml and clicked through all the days in June and noticed that the IC train was not running those two weekends. I further notice that the S-Bahn shown at 16:06 goes from Schaffhausen to Zurich by a more round about route than the IC train, by looking at the intermediate stops. The fast line between Schaffhausen and Zurich has no trains running those days, a dead give away that there is weekend engineering work going on.
If you have not bought the tickets from Deutsche Bahn already, I don't see a way to do this. Next best thing is to buy Saver Day Passes now for June 17. Cost is 52 CHF pp for 2nd class, or if you are getting a Half Fare Card, 39 CHF.
Thanks sam. Wow they plan trackwork so far in advance? Is it possible it will shift again?
So if i get a saver day pass, and get a seat reservation, that will give me the same thing?
Yes, a Saver Day Pass gives you unlimited travel in the GA area of validity for the day.
There are still plenty of seats available in 2nd class on the 8:32 BE on June 17. in the purchase process, you will put in your reduction, which is 1-Day Travel Pass. Then you will be charged the 36 CHF seat reservation fee.
https://shop.rhb.ch/en/bernina-express
ok thank you Sam, you are awesome!
Are there any other german cities I can use (as opposed to Singen) to start in Germany? I've tried Freiburg also but it has the same issue.
I tried Konstanz and I tried Lindau, no dice.
Thank you for trying, appreciate it. Looks like i will have to get half fare card after all :D
Jun 17 is still far away. Just keep it simple, and buy a Saver Day Pass as soon as you can. The Germany Hack seat61 proposes is not really that useful anymore.
Wow they plan trackwork so far in advance?
Here is just one of many time lapse videos of what a simple highway overpass replacement takes to complete in 36 hours. Looks like a lot of advance planning has to take place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AyXDPWfI1w
I don't know what work they have in mind for the Schaffhausen-Zurich mainline in June, but shutting down the line over 2 successive weekends indicates it could be kind of major.
Looks like that would be what I’ll have to do.
I’m curious, what happens to people who have brought the ticket already before the replacement trains were scheduled? It was available to buy up until now. And I did see a handful of occasions where the tickets weren’t available when I did a search but it came back the next day. I was hoping this was one of them 😅
If somebody already had bought them, they would simply travel on the S-Bahn connection through Schaffhausen, then the rest of the ticket would be valid to Tirano. It must have something to do with the fact that the train from Singen to Zurich is a Swiss IC train that DB is allowed to sell. The S-Bahns are local network trains and perhaps do not qualify for DB's ticket shop. When I try, I get a message; "We cannot sell that connection, go to Interail."
If somebody already had bought them, they would simply travel on the S-Bahn connection through Schaffhausen, then the rest of the ticket would be valid to Tirano.
Wow that would really suck if they did travel that leg. Gone from 3 to 5 transfers. Must be terrible journey😅
Actually, nothing would have changed from Zurich to Tirano on June 17, so it still would be an early train Zurich to Chur, connecting to the Bernina Express at 8:28 from Chur to Tirano. What you saw from Deutsch Bahn was a "hallucination", as the AI folks call it. There would have just been the extra connection in Schaffhausen.
Yes but if someone was genuinely starting their trip from Singen, that would be annoying.
