TheFlyingDoctor

Day 2: Brussels to Zurich

After the Brussels warmup, this would be the first real test of our plan, requiring over seven hours on trains. Fortunately these would be high speed ICE trains, and better still, we’d be in first class. I’d pre-booked about three months in advance of travel via the Belgian SNCB, for a little under €300. The routing was via Frankfurt, with both services operated by Deutsche Bahn; but trains and stations would be as much of Germany as we would encounter, as we preferred to push through to Switzerland. Still, this would technically be a three country day!


Train 2: Bruxelles-Midi to Frankfurt(Main) HBf
Deutsche Bahn ICE International, First Class
2017-05-29 ICE15 Dep: 10:25 Arr: 13:30 (3 hours 5 minutes)

We picked up breakfast and travel snacks at the station before searching for the train; it was as early as we are, already aan perron forty minutes before scheduled departure. However, that meant 30 minutes admiring it from the platform before doors opened... Surprisingly there didn’t seem to be a dedicated luggage space, just overhead racks; but as some of the first on we were able to wedge our case behind a seat at the end of the carriage. Our seats were already assigned - an ‘airline’ style pair with no table, but thus no facing seatmates either – and came with free newspapers and a menu detailing an extensive buy-on-board offering. Complimentary chocolates were also handed out twice – at Aachen, and just before Frankfurt airport.

The party piece of these trains is definitely speed: before we’d even left Brussels we were pushing 190km/h, rising to 225km/h by Liege, and topping out at 300km/h further along. Unsurprisingly we therefore made our second on-time arrival, into Frankfurt’s impressive terminal. Although we hadn’t noticed much in the way of air-conditioning on board, the station was humid by comparison, so clearly the train had been quietly keeping us comfortable. As the duo of chocolates had turned out to be the only free food, we restocked our snack supply before making our way to the next train.
Train 3: Frankfurt(Main) HBf to Zurich HB Basel SBB
Deutsche Bahn ICE International, First Class
2017-05-29 ICE75 Dep: 14:00
Train 75 turns out to be a service all the way to Chur, but we’ll be getting there at a more leisurely pace over the next few days. Again there was no luggage space, so I had to heft the case into an overhead. WiFi should have been available on the previous train but hadn’t been working; this time we were in luck, and the speed turns out to be solid enough for actual browsing rather than just an email check.

Unfortunately the five minute delay we picked up on departure steadily grew throughout the journey. At 16:50 a long announcement involving Zurich was made – but only in German. However, it was clear that we weren’t making enough progress, as by then we should have been five minutes along from Basel Bad., a stop we eventually reached 25 minutes behind schedule. We only made it one station further along the line, to Basel proper; where were informed that the service would be terminating.


Train 4: Basel SBB to Zurich HB
SBB Intercity, First Class
2017-05-29 IC581 Dep: 17:33 Arr: 18:26 (53 minutes)

Thus we quickly added an extra component to our itinerary... a direct train to Zurich which departed Basel about ten minutes after we eventually arrived. This was a less fancy regional service from Swiss operator SBB. Naturally we didn’t have seat reservations, but there was a first class carriage in which we were able to find a facing pair. During the ticket check there seemed to be no issue with our having transferred to a different company (and indeed country)’s trains.

The new route turned out to take less than hour, through an enjoyably scenic stretch of countryside. So all told we arrived in Zurich only 40 minutes later than expected; almost precisely eight hours since departing Brussels. This was actually the only part of our journey that experienced significant disruption – who would have expected it to be a German train to Switzerland that failed to run on time?