Today I’m off to Bavaria by train. My first stop is Munich, where I’ll be spending four nights. There are currently six daily flight pairs operated jointly by Lufthansa and SWISS between Zürich and Munich, but honestly, it’s just not worth it to fly.

The service between Zürich and Munich is operated by the Swiss Federal Railways SBB with an Alstom ETR610 composition. At peak hours the train will run as a twin composition until St. Gallen, where they are then separated and only the forward part runs on to Munich. Each composition has five cars: two First Class, two Second Class, and a dining car. Seat reservations are not mandatory but highly recommended.

The journey from Zürich HB to Munich takes three hours and 31 minutes. However, today I join the train in Winterthur, from where it’s only three hours and six minutes. Winterthur is the second stop, after Zürich airport, and the train stops a further six times on the way between Winterthur and Munich.

The Cabin

Seating in First Class is in a 1 + 2 configuration, with a variety of seating option. Some seats are facing, while others are arranged behind each other like on an aircraft.

Each seat has a removable armrest on the aisle side, and a good seatback recline. More importantly, the recline moves the seat cushion forward instead of tilting back of the seatback. As a result, you can recline without infringing on the pitch of the person behind you. The pitch is okay, but not overly generous.

Each seat has it’s on reading lamp, which works when I try it.

There are also two power sockets. The upper one is for the Swiss system, whereas the lower is for the European.

And there is a foldable table between opposing seat, which is large enough to comfortably place two laptops on it when open.

We pick up a delay

The train departs Winterthur with a slight delay of two minutes. However, just before we reach St. Gallen, the train stops unexpectedly because unauthorised persons have been detected near the railway tracks. It only takes a few minutes before the train is cleared to continue, but by the time we pull into St. Gallen station, we already running ten minutes late. From there on, the delay just keeps increasing. By the time we arrive in Munich, we’ve picked up a delay of thirty minutes.

Arriving in Munich

München Hauptbahnhof is as ugly as it is big. Currently, the facility is undergoing refurbishment and renovation. And it needs it!

My hotel is just around the corner. The journey from door to door, from my office in Winterthur to my hotel is exactly four hours.

Conclusion

I’m always smitten by how convenient and how much easier travelling by train is compared to travelling by air. There’s no need to think about what you may or may not pack, and no need to worry about what to do in case your suitcase doesn’t make it. Add to that, in this case the train was also faster than taking a plane. But I’ll withold my judgement until the end of my trip.