Having spent the morning and early part of the afternoon exploring the city of Geneva, the weather had turned and my own decision paralysis led me to falling back on a safe bet, the railway! With Geneva being at the western end of the Swiss rail network, the city is served by a mix of both ‘InterCity’ and ‘InterRegio’ services and I decided a run along Lac Léman and back to compare them both was required.
With the city of Lausanne being around 40 miles from Geneva along Lac Léman (a similar distance as Peterborough to Grantham), I thought this would be a good distance to undertake a comparison, especially given that Peterborough to Grantham is also served by ‘Intercity’ and ‘Regional’ services. The eastbound journey fell to an ‘InterCity’ service purely as this was the first scheduled after I arrived at the station and so I soon found myself boarding train 727, an ‘IC1’ service towards St. Gallen.
Formed of two double deck 8-car Bombardier SBB RAB(D)e 502 units, the service had a capacity of between 1,600 and 2,000 passengers and was scheduled to compete the journey in 42 minutes. In 2nd class the seating was mostly in bays of four seats around ½ tables, although there was some ‘airline’ style and longitudinal seating throughout the carriages. Whilst each pair of seats had access to a European socket, there was no USB sockets or WiFi provided.
On thing the Swiss do well is railway catering (you can read about my previous experience of it here) and each half of this ‘InterCity’ service had a restaurant car providing a range of options including proper meals. Unfortunately, with the length of my journey there wasn’t time to have another sample of the menu, but Swiss railway catering is definitely a step up from that of the British rail network.
Despite this being an ‘InterCity’ service, there were two intermediate stops on my journey from Geneva to Lausanne, at the towns of Nyon and Morges. Weirdly, all the information I could find when writing this post seemed to indicate that it was ‘InterRegio’ services that called at these stations, however for my journeys it was definitely the other way around, so I don’t know what’s happened there! On arrival at Lausanne at 1610, our 42-minute scheduled journey had only actually taken 41 minutes, with the service arriving in a minute early.
After half an hour or so at Lausanne, including some time watching some rather interesting train formations pass through, my ‘InterRegio’ service back to Geneva pulled into the station. Train 1724, an ‘IR90’ service from Brig was scheduled to take just 35 minutes to reach Switzerland’s westernmost city, with the journey being a non-stop run avoiding the intermediate towns along Lac Léman.
Formed of an Re460 locomotive hauling 12 carriages, the ‘InterRegio’ fleet is less modern than the new EMUs of the ‘InterCity’ fleet, however it was nice to be taking a journey on a loco hauled train. Onboard in 2nd class it was a similar layout to the previous train with bays of four seats around ¼ tables with Euro sockets being available in the very strange position of the walls above the seat backs. The lack of WiFi is also a similarity between the two types of service.
As with the ‘InterCity’ services, the ‘InterRegio’ services have a restaurant car, although whether the menu is the same I could not tell you as I didn’t discover it until I was leaving the train in Geneva. Once again the journey was punctual with us arriving back in Geneva exactly on time at 1718, 35 minutes after we left Lausanne.
The differences between the Swiss ‘InterCity’ and ‘InterRegio’ services were fairly minimal. Although the former has newer rolling stock, both have comfortable seats, similar amenities and the all important restaurant car. Depending on the journey you’re making, one might be quicker than the other, but the five minutes on my trip was inconsequential. Compared to the British Rail network, the ‘InterCity’ service is reasonably comparable with some amenities being better for each, however when it comes to ‘Regional’ services, Switzerland is definitely the winner!
Flights & Times 