Paris to Lucerne

There is a direct train to Basel at 7:07. Where are you looking?
There also trains with a single connection through Lausanne at 7:57 and through Geneva at 9:17. They are a bit longer than going through Basel, which is indeed the shortest route.

Sam,
Thanks for your reply. I have been looking at Sbb.ch Is there a better place to find these answers? Yes, I saw the option at 7:07, but I was hoping for something just a bit later....picky, I know! This is our first trip to Europe so perhaps I am getting bogged down in details.
Thanks!

string,

The best place to see rail schedules all over Europe is the Bahn.de (German Rail) website. However they tend to only sell tickets for rail trips originating in Germany. If you want to buy online tickets, one of the most user friendly websites is www.trainline.eu which sells tickets for rail networks in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and a few other countries (but unfortunately not Switzerland yet), at the same prices as charged by the rail networks.

One of the easiest trips appears to be a departure from Paris Gare de Lyon at 09:53, arriving Lucerne at 15:05 (time 5H:12M, one change at Basel SBB). There are numerous other solutions available, some with two changes. The train from Basel SBB to Lucerne is an Interregio so it probably wouldn't make any difference in price whether you bought tickets in advance or when you arrive in Basel.

In the same situation, I'd probably buy the Paris - Basel ticket on the Trainline website as soon as it's available, and the Basel - Lucerne ticket on the SBB.ch website. While it would be easy to buy the Swiss ticket in Basel, I tend to prefer not to have to deal with that when I'm hauling luggage.

Ken, when I use your link, I am not seeing it for June 16.

Stringman8, You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need. Somebody famous used to sing that.

Stringman, I went to TGV-Lyria ( http://www.tgv-lyria.com/en ), the company that runs the trains from Paris to Switzerland and for 16th June it shows:

9203, 07:07 PARIS GARE DE LYON, 10:26 BASEL SBB
9213, 11:45 PARIS GARE DE LYON, 15:26 BASEL SBB
9215, 14:23 PARIS GARE DE LYON, 17:35 BASEL SBB
9225 18:23 PARIS GARE DE LYON, 21:36 BASEL SBB

SBB shows the same.
Curious, Normally 6 trains per day, one every 2 hours, so there should be a train around 09:xx and another around 16xx. Maybe you have caught a day when they are doing track maintenance.

P.S. Basel to Luzern is no problem, 2 trains per hour.

I planned the same itinerary (with Chris's advice) to get our family from Paris to Lucerne via Basel. We took a bus from our hotel to Gare de Lyon, caught the TGV Lyria to Basel, and switched to Swiss service to Lucerne, then Engelberg. It was advantageous for us to buy the Half Fare pass once in Switzerland.

Our rates were good for the Lyria portion of the trip when we booked with Trainline (https://www.capitainetrain.com) 3 months in advance. You're right at that booking horizon in the next week+. FWIW, I did work the itinerary with a Rail Europe rep first, and found it to be more expensive to go through them, for several reasons. The Captain Train app on our phones made it so easy when the conductor came by - I just showed the bar code for our five tickets and we were all set. I had printed hard copies, as well - but the app was great.

We did leave early in the morning, since our train time would end up being about 6 hours or so. It was a long travel day, but a pleasant way to get from Paris to the Alps! I would do it again if I had the opportunity.

Hope this helps!
Laurie

Thank you all for your helpful replies. I am sad there doesn't seem to be a train that day at 09:xx, however, I'm sure it will all work out! Is it possible that they would add this train later, or are these schedules set in stone?
Thanks again!
D

string,

Using the Bahn.de website and a date of 16 June, there are departures from Paris shown for 7:57, 08:40, 09:17, 09:25 and 10:55 (among others). The quickest trip appears to be a departure from Paris Est at 10:55, arriving Lucerne at 15:30 (time 4H:35M, 2 changes in Strasbourg and Basel SBB). If you use that trip, as I recall you'll be arriving via TER in the "old" part of the Basel station and will have to walk through to the new part, up the stairs and then down to your next platform.