EC Geneve-Milano Centrale, timetable change?

[London_123]

The Eurocity from Geneve to Milano Centrale is frequently delayed (for a Swiss train). Yesterday I noticed that the arrival time in Sion of the train departing Montreux at 8.36am was 5 minutes later than it was previously; now it arrives at 9.11 am and the train takes 35 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Could anyone confirm this timetable change and the reasons for it?

 

[Oscar]

I can confirm that the EC 37 Genève-Milano Centrale is due to arrive at Sion at 09:11 until 14th December but not the reason for it.

Eurocity trains between Switzerland and Italy are often delayed for several reasons including:

- trains running from Italy to Switzerland are often slightly delayed in Italy, sometimes due to local trains running ahead of them, and arrive late in Switzerland where the rail network is used much more intensively than in Italy and miss their path.
- the ETR 470 rolling stock used on the Gotthard route is unreliable and SBB do not have enough alternative rolling stock which can run into Italy (due to the different electricity system) to take these trains out of service yet.

On the Gotthard route SBB runs a lot of trains between Zürich and Lugano (and sometimes Chiasso) only with ICN (Intercity tilting train) sets to ensure a punctual and reliable service between Canton Ticino and the rest of the country. Spare trains in Chiasso are sometimes used to provide replacement services in the path of the EC when the EC is late.

The trains used between Genève/Lausanne/Bern/Basel and Italy via Domodossola are more modern ETR 610s which are more reliable but lack capacity.

 

[MCR247]

Do they still do set swaps between an ETR 470 and an ICN at an intermediate station?

 

[Oscar]

ICN trains often run in the same path as an ETR 470 between Zürich and Lugano to provide extra capacity with passengers travelling to/from Italy sometimes swapping at Lugano. When non-tilting sets are used in place of the normal Pendolino trains journeys are also longer - the journey time from EC 24 (1910 Milano Centre - Zürich HB) for example is now around 40 minutes longer than in 2011 for this reason. The ICN trains were designed for the Jurafusslinie (Olten to Lausanne/Genève via Biel/Bienne and Neuchatel) and have are only used on the Gotthard route because of the unreliability of the ETR 470s.