GENEVA Airport station is an undistinguished affair and, much like its Manchester counterpart, was built with too few platforms. Geneva is also underground and darker, but its trains do offer more exotic locations: Lausanne not Leeds, Neuchâtel not Newcastle. Regardless of these surroundings, however, my next four days are going to be an antidote to the depression associated with the ailing railway systems of the UK, lately France and, increasingly, Germany.
Which train to take first? The obvious choices were the 06.49 to Lucerne or the 07.05 to Zurich. Research the night before had indicated the former might be a Class 460 ‘Lok 2000’ loco on nine ‘Eurofima’ aircon coaches, the First Class of which looked particularly inviting. On the other hand, it seemed the Zurich train would be a modern double-decker Bombardier Class 502 EMU.
Early-morning reality presented a push-pull seven-coach double-decker set for the 06.49, which did not really fit with my concept of a 135min InterCity journey, but at least there was a Class 460 on the front end. In my experience, no one seems to have mastered how to create a spacious and comfortable environment in the narrow confines of a train’s top-deck. Then again, has any able-bodied person ever chosen to go downstairs on one if there was space upstairs? The upstairs accommodation felt cramped – similar to a UK tilting train profile, but even worse.
A poor start
A grimy exterior and a written apology for dirty windows, stuck on the glasswork right in a passenger’s eye-line, were poor starts. In the UK, this situation is often the result of cold weather freezing the flails of automatic washplants, but the recent spring-like October weather should have been well within the compass of Swiss equipment. The end vehicles were worse than the middle ones, indicating a possible design problem or the train moving too quickly through the apparatus.
Departure time approached. Hmmm, ½min late start – not one where the famous Swiss railway clock second hand pauses momentarily exactly at the departure time and the
