One hundred extra trains laid on for visitors to National Swiss-Wrestling and Alpine Festival

Longstanding expats will know a major national Swiss-wrestling tournament and Alpine festival is to take place in the canton at the end of this week.

Expats new to Zug will be interested to discover that their chosen place of work is to be the focus of much attention across the country between Friday 23 and Sunday 25 August, including television coverage. Such tournaments take place every three years only and much planning has gone into this event involving no fewer than 276 athletes (though only one female one) all at a cost of CHF 36 million.

The chairman of the organising committee is Heinz Tännler, who is also the director of finance in the canton. What is certain this week is that in addition to keeping a close eye on cantonal finances he will also be keeping a close eye on the weather, the outlook for which is promising.

Up to 450,000 visitors are expected, with the SBB putting on extra trains for the event, though not all will be arriving by rail, of course.

Some 20,000 people are expected to arrive in Zug on 41 trains in the hour prior to 7 am, the time they need to arrive if they want to see matches from the start, i.e. at 7.30 am. Trains will be arriving at the station one after another; at times there will be as many as four trains arriving at the same time. The early start also means, for example, that anyone travelling from Bern has to set off from there at 4.40 am.

Fortunately, police officers, members of the organising committee and volunteers wearing yellow vests will be there to help. As Isobel Weingart, the SBB’s project leader during the time of the festival, mentioned, some 160 additional staff will be present at Zug, Zurich, Lucerne, Arth-Goldau and Rotkreuz stations to help.

Of note is that the Schutzengel station will be closed during the course of the event.

As Freddy Trütsch, the head of communications of the festival, said, he expects most visitors arriving at the station to then make their way to the arena on foot, mainly via General Guisan Strasse, a shuttle service not provided for reasons of safety.

As for the ZVB transport company, they will be operating one third more buses than they usually do this coming weekend, making sure those who live in the region will be able to get to the event in time and return home easily afterwards.

Lucky are visitors coming from the canton of Schwyz, who will be able to take a ferry from Arth direct to Zug, with early morning refreshments served on board to boot.