Hi,
Does anyone know about the reservation fees along with the Switzerland rail pass? We plan to be in switzerland for a week with our base in interlaken and make day trips to zurich/lucerne and bern. After we buy the swiss rail pass do we need to pay reservation fees on trains for these individual day trips?
Thanks,
Arjun

Here is a link to a page that should tell you what you need to know: http://tinyurl.com/gtoty.

they are optional and there is little need for them in my experience with usually two trains an hour on these routes - if you do the railpass pays the train fare but not the minimal reservation fee - a few swiss francs. but i wouldn't worry about it.

We took the train from Interlaken to Zurich through Berne 3 weeks ago and the train wasn't crowded at all. Why don't you ask at the train station when you arrive and follow their recommendation as we did.

With some exceptions (Glacier/Bernina Express; Golden Pass, etc., etc.) the usual p[olicy has been that for trips which occur <b>wholly within Switzerland</b> reservations are not required and often not even available.

The routes you will use have frequent services and I'd be very surprised if you couldn't find availabe seats; you'd have even less problem with that if you were in First (but that certainly doesn't mean you have to be in First which some feel isn't worth the aditonal cost).