Classic route
Gotthard Express
Zurich → Milan · Switzerland · Italy
Gotthard Express in pictures




Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 280 km
- Fastest time
- 3 h 17 min
- Average speed
- 85 km/h
- Top speed
- 200 km/h
- Operator
- SBB · Trenitalia
- Train
- Giruno / Astoro
- Countries
- Switzerland, Italy
- In service since
- 2016
- Runs
- roughly hourly
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Threads the 57.1 km Gotthard Base Tunnel: the longest and deepest railway tunnel on the planet.
Since 2016 this corridor has run through the Gotthard Base Tunnel: at 57 km the longest railway tunnel on earth, 2,300 m under the pass at its deepest. SBB’s Giruno sets leave the Zugersee and Lake Lucerne arms behind at Arth-Goldau, vanish under the Alps for twenty minutes, and emerge to palm trees, Bellinzona’s three UNESCO castles and the lake run past Lugano. The 1882 mountain line above, with its famous spiral tunnels, still carries the slow trains for those who want the view instead of the speed.
How this line was checked
- The 179 km this route shares with OpenStreetMap relation 7779153 is drawn from that relation's own nodes, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: 94.8% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 6 m); the longest stretch away from it is 6.5 km
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 1 km from the shape of EC 13
Along the way
- Zugersee shore
- Arth-Goldau beneath the Rigi
- Gotthard Base Tunnel — 57 km
- Bellinzona’s castle trio
- Lake Lugano curves
- Como before the Milan plain
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