Related Content
Disruption in the Gotthard Base Tunnel
Most trains on the Basel / Zurich - Lugano - Italy routes are being diverted on to a longer route, because the tunnel will not be fully operational until September 2024!
Simon HarperShare
A freight train has damaged over 8 kilometers of track in Europe's longest rail tunnel, with the full reconstruction work inevitably expected to take several months.
As a result the Swiss national rail operator SBB has had to make significant alterations to the the usual timetable.
Until December 9th:
The alterations, which will be in place until the new timetable, which commences on December 10th, are:
- The IC trains on the Basel ↔ Lugano and Zurich ↔ Lugano will have their journey times extended by around 50 mins.
- The exception is the train which departs Zurich HB on Fridays at 17:33 and arrives in Lugano at 19:58.
- Most trains on the Zurich to Milano Centrale and Milano Centrale to Zurich HB routes will be operating, but with departure times from Zurich and hour earlier than usual and arrival times in Zurich an hour later.
- The Zurich ↔ Venezia/Venice and Zurich ↔ Genova service will be departing Zurich an hour earlier than usual, and arriving an hour later into Zurich.
- Zurich ↔ Genova and the Zurich ↔ Bologna services will only be available between Zurich and Chiasso/Milan
- The two daily trains on the Basel ↔ Milano Centrale via Luzern route, including the train which commences its journey in Frankfurt (Main), will be turning round in Lugano, with connections to and from Italy.
From December 10th:
According to the info on SBB these alterations will be in place until Easter 2024 (March 31st), but the usual service through the tunnel won't be available before September 2024.
- On Monday to Thursday the IC trains on the Basel ↔ Lugano and Zurich ↔ Lugano will have their journey times extended by around 50mins
- On Friday to Sunday some trains will revert to using the tunnel*
- On Monday to Thursday all trains on the Zurich to Milano Centrale and Milano Centrale to Zurich HB routes will be operating, but with departure times from Zurich and hour earlier than usual and arrival times in Zurich an hour later.
- On Friday to Sunday some trains between Zurich and Milano will revert to using the tunnel*
- the Zurich ↔ Genova direct trains will resume
- The two daily trains on the Basel ↔ Milano Centrale via Luzern route will be turning around in Lugano
- The Frankfurt (Main) ↔ Milano Centrale will be turning around in Chiasso, but it will also take new route in both directions: Frankfurt (Main) - Ringsheim/Europa-Park - Basel - Zurich - Lugano - Chiasso ( - Milano)
*= The pan-European timetable uploaded by DB for 2024 shows a different scenario which in summary is:
- Until April 14th, few alterations on the current timetable
- From April 15th to Sep 29th - the trains on the Zurich ↔ Lugano route will revert to their usual schedule, but the trains trains to and from Milano beyond will seemingly still be on the slower route.
- From Sept 29th the usual timetable is restored.
Simon Harper
I wanted to share my passion for train travel and explain how anyone can take the fantastic journeys I have taken.
This is one of more than 100 train travel guides available on ShowMeTheJourney, which will make it easier to take the train journeys you want or need to make. As always, all images were captured on trips taken by ShowMeTheJourney.
This second version of ShowMeTheJourney is exciting and new, so we are genuinely thrilled that you are here and reading this, but we also need your help.
We’re striving not to let anything get in the way of providing the most useful service possible, hence a facility has been set up with DonorBox which can be used to support the running costs and make improvements.
Instead of advertising or paywalls, your financial support will make a positive difference to delivering an enhanced service, as there’s a lot of ideas which we want to make happen.
So if you have found the info provided here to be useful, please consider saying thank you.
