Hello! I'm new to planning a trip to Switzerland, and I'm trying to determine travel times from place to place; i.e how long would it take to get from Wengen to Winterthur, as an example. I want to see how feasible it is to travel from place to place. Is there an easy way to figure this out? I went to the rail site but was struggling a bit since I'm a newbie at this!
Posted by
Wengen
2493 posts
The SBB website (www.sbb.ch) is the easy way to find this out. Just enter your origin and your destination and it will show you how long it takes, how often there are departures, and who many transfers are involved. And it will show you prices too, but the starting price does assume that you have the Half Fare Card.
What on the SBB website makes you struggle?
Posted by
OP
9 posts
I think what I'm struggling with, is I can't tell if it's giving me the quickest way to get somewhere, or if it's just showing me the next options in time. For example, when I plug in Wengen to Winterthur, it's taking me through Bern, which seems round about. Why not go through Lucerne, which appears more direct? I' cannot tell how the site is prioritizing route? Any insights on that? Thank you!
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8319 posts
Google Maps has time and distances between destinations.
Posted by
Wengen
2493 posts
It will always give you the quickest option, given the time of departure you put in. And yes, the quickest option is sometimes not obvious, as Swiss geography results in the fastest route not always being the most direct.
The site will also show slower connections if they involve less transfers. But going from Winterthur to Wengen via Luzern is a lot slower as via Bern, as the Luzern - Interlaken line is no a very fast one. It is the more scenic route though. So if you want to force a routing via Luzern just go in to settings, en enable the "Via" field. You can then plan a trip from Winterthur to Wengen via Luzern.
Posted by
Green Bay
21140 posts
Yes, the SBB site always defaults to the fastest way. Going from Wengen to Winterthur will go via Bern and Zurich for the fastest way. If you were buying a ticket, going via Brienz, and Luzern would be slightly cheaper as it is a shorter distance traveled and tickets are basically based on actual distance traveled over the rails.
For instance, last week I traveled from Zermatt to Luzern. SBB wanted me to go via Visp, Loetschberg Base Tunnel, Bern, Zofingen to Luzern in 3 1/2 hours. But I wanted to go by the most scenic route possible, so I had to put in via Brig, Kandersteg, Interlaken Ost, Brienz to Luzern in 6 1/2 hours. Part of that extra time was because of long change times because it was not a standard routing with short change times.