Traveling by train from Luzern to Lausanne
in Switzerland
Will be taking Ultimate Alps & Dolomites and Switzerland: Europe's Crown Jewel tours back-to-back in June 2026. Plan on traveling by train from Luzern to Lausanne to start the second tour. Any suggestions on train schedules and routes?
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Swiss rail is awesome. Use the Swiss national rail service. Direct every hour or so
seat61.com is a great website for all things TRAINS. We refer to it every time we travel abroad. It will tell you how to book tickets and show you lots of photos. You can even email the owner of the website and he will answer any questions you have.
I will typically book first class tickets for anything over 90 minutes. SBB-Swiss rail- does have a door to door luggage service but I have never used them. In addition if you have several days between tours and plan do day trip out of your base city via train then a 2 or 3 day Swiss rail pass may make sense. You would have to run the numbere
I agree that working directly with Swiss Rail is easy and efficient. I have used SBB’s luggage service but not between these points. The service can be station-to-station, hotel-to-hotel or some other iteration. We were pleased with our hotel-to-hotel service. It was like how Tauck handles luggage transfer—completely seamless for us.
We used the Swiss trains luggage transfer in 2018, from a hotel in Lucerne to a hotel in Montreux. We were making an all-day stop in Interlochen along the way. If I remember correctly, our luggage went by truck and not by train, and was waiting for us in our room when we arrived. So you might also wish to look into when your luggage will arrive if you use this service. We were super happy with this convenience and thought the price was reasonable. The hotels are all familiar with this service and the process is very smooth.
I used Trainline when we were taking the train in Spain. It was more useful than the official rail websites for actually booking the tickets. Better explanation of seat classes, on board services, etc and it didn't have issues purchasing the seats from the US with a US credit card. Sometimes the European train service websites assume everyone is a regular traveler and understands all the details. So if you're having issues with SBB you might try this instead. When booking, look closely at the price differences depending on time of day, how many stops there are, etc.
We also use Trainline. It's so easy, a 5th grader and do it.