6 Minute to change trains in Switzerland
 

I am looking to book a train from Zurich to St. Moritz at the beginning of May and I have to transfer in Chur and there is only 6 minutes to change trains. Is that even possible to do with luggage?

If you plug in your train info at www.sbb.ch, you will find that the Chur transfer for your train is "usually" track 9 to 10.
If you then look at the station map, http://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/infras...an-chur-a4.pdf, you will find that track 9 and 10 are on the same platform, that is the trains are physically separated by perhaps 20 yards from each other on the same platform.
If you did not have luggage, this transfer would take less than 10 seconds from door to door. With luggage, it all depends on how much you are schlepping with you as well as the distance between the car you got off and the car you need to get on. You can hop on any car and make you way to the correct class with available seats, but it is easier to move on the platform as much as time allows and hop onto the correct class train with empty seats. Adjacent trains don't always align squarely. Ask the ticket inspector on your Zurich-Chur leg if you should move to a different car to catch your Chur-St. Moritz train quicker with less hassle with luggage.

We had the same panic attack when we saw the schedule.. I wouldn't worry about it. It was not a large station and it went right as planned. I believe we actually came in and went out on the same track. I don't remember hauling my two kids and small bags too far. We had sent our luggage ahead with the skis, which years ago you were allowed to do. If you are arriving on Swissair, I believe you can still do that.

A lot of people will be doing the exact same thing.. try to not let it concern you, although that is hard to do when you see that short of a connection anywhere else!

The reason you change trains is because beyond Chur it is only narrow-gauged rail lines I believe - thus trains cannot physically go thru and 6 minutes sees many folks get off one traoin and on a train often at an adjoining platform - a coordinated change where if one train is late I believe they hold the connecting train for a reasonable time or else they'd have a nearly empty train leaving the station.

Can certainly be done if

1)you are ready to get off as the train pulls in
2) you are reasonably fit
3) you have limited luggage you can either pick up and carry or pull at a brisk pace

If you have a ton of luggage, walk very slowly and wait until the train stops to get up and gather your belongings you may have a problem.

We had 5 minutes to change trains in Strasbourg. Worked without a problem like Greg described.

Do nor hesitate to ask ASAP, any official, when you get off the first train to the location of the next train.

It worked for us with only six minutes to spare.

Do nor hesitate to ask ASAP, any official, when you get off the first train to the location of the next train. >

Actually I have found Swiss conductors to be proactive in asking at least folks with railpasses who they know then are foreign tourists 'where are you going?'

And you certainly can ask the conductor of the first train which platform the connection will be on - he should know, of course.

Absolutely agree with Pal.

Know where the next train is located without having to look at the overhead 'board' and using
valuable time.

Wow has this place changed!! It's gone from a simple place to quite a station it seems

http://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/infras...an-chur-a4.pdf

"It's gone from a simple place to quite a station it seems"

But platforms 9&10 are still to all intents and purposes the same platform. 6 minutes to change trains is more than ample - however much luggage the OP has and however dilatorily he or she walks.

It's easy. The railway station official who has to give the departure permission to the St. Moritz bound train waits until everybody has changed rains.
It doesn't work the same way in the other direction, however: if the train from St. Moritz arrives at Chur with a delay of more than 10 min, the IC train to Zurich will have left

"Is that even possible?"

Just for fun, let's sketch it out:

hh:mm:ss
00:00:00 train comes to a stand;
00:00:05 doors released
00:00:10 you push door button, door opens
00:00:20 you step off train, 2 or 3 steps down
00:00:30 you walk 10 paces across platform to the waiting Rhatishe Bahn narrow gauge train
00:00:35 you push door button
00:00:40 door opens
00:00:45 you step onto train, 2 or 3 steps up.

I make that 45 seconds! ;0)

"I make that 45 seconds! ;0)"


...only because you're dawdling.

Stop couch-potatoing in seat 61 and you can do it in under 15 secs, carriage to carriage. As anyone used to connecting at what's now Reading platforms 6&7 from the Gatwick train to a Cotswold line train (or at 3&7 from the Basingstoke line to the Cotswold line) will tell you.

Near instantaneous connecting is what trains (and their schedule planners) are there for.

Flanneruk, I'll have you know I once made a connection in Bucharest in MINUS 45 seconds. I arrived on the train from Istanbul over 3 hours late, and the onward train to Budapest started rolling as I leapt off the arriving train. I made it, but only by chasing the departing train down the platform and hauling myself up, to cheers from the Romanians waiting on the platform. So I'm only a part-time couch potato. ;0)

But platforms 9&10 are still to all intents and purposes the same platform. 6 minutes to change trains is more than ample - however much luggage the OP has and however dilatorily he or she walks.>

but the point is station officials will allow even the most slothful of folks make it - trains will not pull out in Switzerland if anyone is still getting off the connecting train and not on the departing train.

This is not the case in flanneruk's Britain however IME as I have seen a connecting train roll into the station with the connection train slowly pulling out of the station.

When I saw the title of your post "6 minutes to change trains," I wondered if you were going to ask what to see and do in Switzerland during your layover.

" trains will not pull out in Switzerland if anyone is still getting off the connecting train and not on the departing train."

Simply untrue. Yet another of those fatuous "grass is always greener" delusions non-European railway hobbyists persist in peddling, but that just don't stand up to more than a few days' using trains as a daily necessity

neckervd's post (which PalQ obviously had had too much of the Dulux White Gloss to read) explains.

"Simply untrue. Yet another of those fatuous "grass is always greener" delusions non-European railway hobbyists persist in peddling, but that just don't stand up to more than a few days' using trains as a daily necessity."

Yes. A train system cannot be both punctual and accomodate every slow-moving commuter.

The Swiss system is no more punctual than any other one and I have ridden literally 1000s of Swiss trains and they often wait for late connecting trains, like at Chur IME. How many Swiss trains has flanner taken or is he nothing his train info from his vehicle's window as I suspect.