As part of its plans to offer new international routes to and from Switzerland, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is looking to buy a fleet of high-speed trains. The public transport provider argued that the new fleet is another step towards offering locally-run trains to places like London and Barcelona.

SBB looking to build a fleet of high-speed trains

In a statement, SBB confirmed that it is considering buying a fleet of 40 high-speed trains. This would be part of its plans to launch a series of direct international routes, most notably between Swiss cities and Rome, southern France, Barcelona and London.

Though the Swiss rail network is one of if not the best in the world, the country does not have a network of high-speed services. With the exception of the line between Bern and Olten and the Gotthard Base Tunnel, no rail routes allow high-speed trains to achieve their top speed. Though there were plans to expand the high-speed network in Switzerland, these were shelved in favour of increasing the frequency of services to run at 15-minute intervals nationwide.

Why does SBB want high-speed trains?

However, while they may be pointless within Switzerland itself, SBB argues that they have great potential on international routes. For example, while the high-speed international TGV Lyria train takes an hour to get from Zurich to Basel, it then takes just three hours to reach Paris using the French high-speed network.

SBB argues that with more and more people willing to travel longer distances by train, having a fleet to take advantage of the European high-speed network makes sense. If SBB had its own fleet of trains, it would also no longer have to rely on other rail providers to run international routes.

According to public procurement platform Simap, SBB will begin to purchase the high-speed trains in 2026. Though they did not reveal how much they would cost, estimates based on SNCF in France show that the 40 trains will likely cost 1 billion francs.

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