Train from SML to Lucerne
 

We are taking the train from Santa Margherita to Lucerne, which is about 7 hours. I thought about breaking up the day by stopping in Lugano for lunch. We can get to Lugano by noon, and then catch a train to Lucerne around 5:00. Is it worth the stop (about 4 hours) to have lunch and look around? Can we stow our luggage at the Lugano train station?

Yeh i would break up the ride in lovely Lugano, gracing the shores of a lovely mountain-girdled Lake Lugano. The Lugano station has baggage lockers and it's a short walk from the main town square and the lake. Lugano itself has little individual things to see rather it's its setting on the lake and the elegant palm-studded lakefront and the vista that unfolds there that is the attraction well worth getting off the train for. The town center is cute with a central arcaded square peppered, in good weather with alfresco cafes. An alternative stop would be Como, in Italy just a few minutes before Lugano, an older looking town on an equally mesmerizing mountain-ful fjord-like lake. If taking a meal the price of things in Como would be about half as cheap as in very pricey Switzerland. From Lugano you have hourly trains to Zurich so you can linger without having to dash back to the station.

Great! Thanks PalQ. We are visiting Lake Como at the beginning of our trip, so I'd rather try Lugano for lunch. We'll be there in early September.

A loopy ride: Lugano-Zurich trains go via the Gotthard Tunnel Route where at several places the train tracks loop under themselves in circles as alititude is gained or it descends. Keep your eyes open after Goschenen as Wassen, a small town with a prominent white church that you incredibly pass by three times! See that church once, few minutes later glide by it again and then later again! After Fluelen the train glides along the shores of cute Lake Luzern going thru the cute town of lakeside town of Brunnen. Lugano-Zurich one of Europe's most scenic mainline trains. Some first class cars may be observation domed ones.

As a novel quirk to this route if you didn't stop in Lugano you'd probably have time to get off the train at Fluelen and board the boat by the station that goes to Lucerne on Lake Lucerne - one of the most beautiful boat trips in europe - if you have a railpass the boat will be covered in full.