I am troubled to have to resort to cliché, but the Swiss trains are of course superior. More spacious, better designed, boasting seats that verge on orthopaedic brilliance and of course running as scheduled. We are in their territory now.
On the Intercity service, there is a cheerfully decorated children’s carriage in which small Swiss monkeys caper across the seats, pausing only to eat balanced fruit selections from compartmentalised lunch boxes and to let me pass. Their parents seem relaxed and to be actually enjoying the company of their own children in transit.
Throughout the Intercity trip a fulfilled and motivated looking casually-uniformed man cleans and likely polishes the toilets and picks up litter. Or would if there were any. What a contrast to the UK where as soon as an Intercity service reaches operational speed around a curve, male passengers are honour-bound to rush to any toilets that are in service, sportingly urinate all around the bowl and ideally up the walls. They must then relocate any unused toilet paper they do find to the floor.
In Switzerland, the train toilets sparkle. When the carefree onboard toilet cleansing operative: long German compound noun likely
fröhliches Toilettenkabinen-Aschenputtel
is momentarily satisfied I find him happily dust-bustering the immaculate carriage floor with a cordless Swiss Dyson.
In the café carriage we sit at comfortable padded seats at a clean table. The espresso, unquestionably served in a decent cup and saucer is very good although happily from the critic’s POV Sancho is insulted with a cappuccino made with foaming milk from a packet. CHF 5.60 the pair. The Swiss do have a large coffee machine with onboard grinder, but clearly the steam pressure required to foam milk is considered an unnecessary risk.
On a local train, equally thoughtfully designed and comfortable, there is a coffee and snack vending machine. Clean, well stocked and functioning for our convenience. It’s adjacent to the ski holders and the best engineered bike racks I have ever seen. Passengers quietly read or admire the perfectly organised passing scenery, tasteful farms, clean light industrial units and private cable cars.
As the carriage fills a very young man, clad in camouflage fatigues boards. He carefully adjusts the empty assault rifle across his back and looks at his phone. Sancho surreptitiously elbows me and inclines her head. No one else pays the young man any attention.
At a stop, the straps from a departing Swiss hikers’ rucksack become entangled with the rifle barrel. The young man apologies and shifts the gun. He goes back to his phone, checking that he won’t be late for his National military Service session.
Leaving on a later Intercity train, we calmly ply our way towards northern Italy. One stop before the border a large amount of people board, sit companionably together and begin chatting and joking. The noise in the carriage increases pleasantly. They unpack quality snackage and enthusiastically discuss it before sharing. These are Italians.
As we cross the border I glance out. The good weather has broken, it’s lively on the roads, the buildings are more tightly packed. There is graffiti. A car park is packed with scooters. We’re in Italy.
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