Swiss Alps to Milan with train work recommendations?

When will this be? If you are looking at departures a few weeks in the future and not seeing tickets for sale that means they have not been loaded yet, not that they have all been sold.

What you could do is travel via Luzern. So Wengen - Interlaken - Luzern - Lugano - Milano - Desenzano del Garda for example. But the route via Spiez - Domodossola with the replacement bus is probably still going to be the fastest.

Thank you for your insights.

We are traveling on saturday 6/15. I can see on the Trenitalia site that there are some tickets listed but the 12:30 routes are listed as sold out. Although the SBB site has that listed as an option. It looks like SBB says we can make it from Wengen to Desenzano in about 7 hours and 36 minutes. The trip through Zurich is a little longer but no bus. My husband doesn't do well with lots of twists and turns (he tends to get vertigo and migraines) so I'm a bit worried about the bus for him. I'm also worried that I now need to grab my tickets from Domodossola onward if we do go the regular route.

We faced that problem traveling from Mürren to Desenzano del Garda with our family of 8 last summer. The construction on the tracks south of Domodossola stared last summer, so that was one problem, but we also faced another issue with a bus link between Milano Centrale and Desenzano. We solved it by breaking the journey into two shorter segments by spending 2 nights near Luzern so we could take the scenic Gotthard Pass route from Luzern to Milan. Then I booked a private transfer for our family from Brescia to Desenzano (only 20 miles, so not too expensive) and the driver took us straight to our hotel. But you don’t need to worry about that part, just the Domodossola one.

I see on SBB the Zurich route you mention. If you get to Interlaken Ost in time for the 9 am train to Zurich it is only 6h 36 m more to Desenzano. And after Zurich you only have 2 easy changes, at Lugano and Milano Centrale. I would much prefer that to the bus route, speaking personally.

The change time at Lugano is only 4 minutes, but that should not be a problem. Just be near the door and ready to get off the train when it stops. You will have to go down the ramp and cross under the tracks to Track 1, but many others will be doing the same thing, and the waiting train is not going to depart until everyone approaching is aboard. You board the nearest carriage and then work your way through the train to your seats (if you have reservations), or just take whatever unreserved seats you see.

The good news is that connection time at Milano Centrale is ample ( almost 30 minutes) and you will not have to rush. Plus at that station you do not have to use underground corridors and ramps to move between platforms. Just walk to the front of the train and use the open area to walk to your next platform. That is not shown on the SBB schedule but you just consult the Departures board for the 14:45 Freccerossa train to Venezia S.Lucia.( assuming you are considering the train I see on SBB). The trains are listed in order of departure time. Confirm the 4-digit train number with what is shown on your tickets. When the platform number is posted, go there and walk along the train (if it is waiting there, which it may or may not be) and find your carriage number. This will also be shown on your ticket, as you will have reserved seats on this Frecciarossa remain.

The interesting thing is that the 12:30 replacement bus (EC053) is not bookable for any day at all. So I suspect that they have decided not to run it at all, but haven't updated the timetable yet. The reason is probably that there is a Trenord replacement bus at 12:00 in Domodossola, that connects with a train in Arona and gets you in Milan a whole 15 minutes earlier. So they maybe expect that everyone is going to take that.

But going via Luzern - Lugano is only half an hour longer. So do that. No need to go all the way to Zurich. Advantage there is that all the trains till Milano are normal trains without compulsory reservations.

Interlaken Ost to Zürich by direct train is only 7-8 minutes longer than going from Interlaken Ost to Luzern. And sometimes the connection times from there work out better. However, the Zürich train is more expensive.

Thanks for these inputs. They are so helpful. I hadn't seen that going through Luzern was an option.

When I look at the SBB site it doesn't give me all routes automatically. For example, it offers Luzern only at 7am, the rest are Zurich or via Brig. I can put it in manually and then look at separate options and tie those together. Is there a way to direct the direction of the trip?

Is one of these paths better in terms of scenery?

Thanks again!

Last question. For these replacement buses, do they have just one running? How does 1 bus = a whole train in terms of capacity? In other cities and local to where I am when track work is going on and they run buses they are running them all the time and lots of them. If we do go the route of Brig, I can see that the ticket is ordinario which would normally mean it didn't require a reservation. But with the replacement bus, how can you be certain there will be space? Thanks again!

Ok! So it looks like the most ideal situation for us is to go this route:

-0912 Wengen back down to Interlaken via Lauterbrunnen
-1004 Interlaken to Luzern arriving 1155
-1218 Luzern to Lugano arriving 1448
-1508 Lugan to Milan Central arriving 1617
-1625 Milano to Desenzano

Strangely I can get some of this portion available to purchase but some does not work (which appears to be on the Italian side). I want to make sure if we do this route, that we should be able to treat these like commuter rail / regional rail and not have to prebook ahead of time, correct?

I spoke with my partner and they agreed that they would prefer to avoid the bus due to their head issues and rely on train only. Plus, we figure it would be nice to take an alternate route since we will have traveled Zurich to Wengen when we arrive to the Alps. So doing something different on the way out is preferable.

Thanks again to you both for all the insights!

Hi Nora—-SBB does not show every possible combination; they pick the ones with the shortest connection times for efficiency.

The Luzern route you are looking at is a good one, but note that the RE80 train from Lugano to Milano Centrale departs at 15:02 on the SBB schedule, not 15:08. That is the 4-minute connection time I mentioned above. If you are OK with that, it’s great.

The alternative is to take the train departing Luzern at 12:39, which has a 7-minute connection at Arth-Goldau, and goes to Milan with no further connection. This means a later train from Milano Centrale to Desenzano, so you would arrive there later.

As for the train from Milano Centrale to Desenzano, SBB does not sell that because the whole trip is within Italy. You can buy that on Trenitalia. You have a choice of Regionale trains or Frecce (fast) trains. the latter are heading to Venice but stop in Desenzano. They are more expensive, but come with reserved seats, which is a benefit these days of crowded trains. Also, the tickets do not have to be validated like the Regionale trains do.

Trenitalia has a new requirement this year for Regional tickets bought online or through their app, with a “check in” online before you board the train. It is confusing a lot of people here in the forum, especially if they are concerned about not having wifi or a cell connection when they need to validate. You can get around that by buying a paper ticket for the regional train at the station—-it still has to be validated, but you stamp it in the machine before boarding the train, just like before. But they you may have to wait inline for the ticket machine or tickets agent at the window. And last year we found our US Visa cards would not work in the ticket machines in Italy without a PIN. So we had to go to the window.

I just thought I should alert you to these issues so you are aware.

Thank you Lola! I really appreciate all the information.