Travelling from Zug to the Zugerberg will soon be faster again

The completely rebuilt Schönegg–Zugerberg funicular railway line will operate normally once again from 11 December 2022. But bus users from the Ägeri Valley will have to wait a little longer: the Nidfuren–Schmittli road section should be passable again from summer 2023.

Today, no-one who uses public transport can imagine a life without an interval timetable (Taktfahrplan). Yet the successful model is only forty years old. Before the introduction of the interval timetable in 1982, not a single train ran directly between Zug and Zurich in the early afternoon.

There is currently a half-hourly service between Lucerne and Zurich, practically without any breaks, while the Zug–Zurich branch has a shutdown at night, which lasts four hours and 22 minutes.

On weekends, night owls can find a train between Lucerne and Zurich practically every hour. These trains stop in Baar, Zug, Cham (with one exception) and Rotkreuz.

As late as the spring of 2022, the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) wanted to take the commuter trains between the two termini Lucerne and Zurich off the market. But there has been a rethink at the federal railway in the meantime.

The commuter trains will continue to run via Zürich Enge
The trains that run to Zurich main station (Hauptbahnhof) via Zürich Enge, in contrast to the regular connections from Thalwil, will continue to run. This should especially please the customers who work in Zurich's banking district around the Paradeplatz in Zurich.

These additional trains will only be available from Monday to Friday, however. In addition, there are gaps in the service over the turn of the year and in midsummer. It’s therefore well worth consulting the online timetable. The new timetable will apply from 11 December 2022.

Otherwise, SBB is relying on new connections in tourist traffic, with Intercity trains running between Zurich and Chur every half hour on every weekend. Chur now also has a direct connection to Geneva on weekends.

The most important event in the timetable change in the canton of Zug is the re-opening of the Zugerberg funicular railway (Zugerberg-Bahn). Rail specialist have been busy practically rebuilding the route of the popular Zug funicular since the end of February 2022.

The track is now elevated along practically the entire route. This makes it easier for wildlife to cross the tracks, and the Zugerberg funicular will no longer have to stop operations in the event of snowfall. Up to now, the snow had to bee laboriously cleared from the track by people with shovels.

During the interruption of its rail operations, the Zugerland Verkehrsbetriebe (ZVB: Zug public transport) also had the two cabins overhauled. At the same time, the operations managers also collected the necessary approvals from the Federal Office of Transport.

In February 2022, experts lifted a cabin of the Zugerbergbahn off the rails. They will soon be placing the revised cabin back on the rails.              Photo: Maria Schmid

In the coming summer, the express bus to the Ägeri valley will no longer run through Allenwinden without stopping. Instead, it will travel to its destination from Zug via the Zug/Baar Tangent and across the Lorzentobel bridge.

This diversion is necessary because the canton of Zug is re-building the road section between the Schmittli (municipality of Baar) and Nidfuren (municipality of Menzingen) from scratch.

In Rotkreuz, the municipality of Risch is converting the Forren and Blegi bus stops into one: Rotkreuz, Forren. As one bus stop is to be added in Walchwil (Walchwil Grueb), the number of ZVB stops remains the same.

Direct connections to the airport will be lost from the end of 2023
As has already been read several times, one major change is emerging for the timetable change from the end of 2023. The SBB plans to rebuild the Zurich Wipkingen railway station in 2024. In the same work block, the SBB also plans to renovate the striking Letten Viaduct.

As a result, the S24 (Zug - Zurich Airport), the Interregional 13 (Lucerne-Zurich-Chur) and the Lucerne-Constance train will then start or end in Zurich. For a period of one year, it will thereby no longer be possible to travel directly from Central Switzerland to the airport. The traffic regime for this interruption is not yet known in detail, however.

A relaunch of the platforms for the timetable query will take place as early as next April: fahrplanauskunft-öv.ch, fahrplanentwurf.ch, fahrplanfelder.ch and transportdatamanagment.ch will then operate under the collective address: öv-info.ch. Public transport is also moving onto the digital segment, with the definitive timetable becoming available on the above platforms from 12 November.