Winterthur railway station
Winterthur is Switzerland's fifth busiest station, and is a major node between Switzerland's largest railway nucleus in Zürich and places in Eastern Switzerland (such as St. Gallen and Schaffhausen), as well as Germany (Munich), and Austria (Vorarlberg). The station is served by trains on Zürich's suburban S-Bahn network, as well as by regional and intercity trains, with most through passenger trains making a stop. It is also connected with Zürich's airport railway station Zürich Flughafen, which can be reached in about 15 minutes about every 8 minutes. Zürich Hauptbahnhof can be reached with up to 16 direct connections per hour and the fastest connection takes only 22 minutes (S12). The station has 9 standard gauge platforms (numbered 1-9).
Chur–Rorschach railway
Since 13 December 2009, two of the three daily EuroCitys to and from Austria have been replaced by Railjet services. This saves a total of 40 minutes running time between Zürich and Vienna, due, among other things, to having faster turnarounds in Buchs. The third train, the former Transalpin service, was also replaced by a Railjet service in June 2010, but, unlike the first two, runs as two coupled sets. Nine day and night trains a day connect Zürich with Austria, all with stops in Sargans and Buchs. The section from Rorschach to St. Margrethen is served four times a day by a EuroCity service on the Zürich–Munich route.
Rheintal Express (REX) services now run between Chur and St. Gallen every hour. Between Sargans and Rorschach, line S4 St Gallen S-Bahn services operated by Südostbahn also run every hour on a circular route with stops at all stations. Between Altstätten and St. Gallen the line is served by lines S1 and S2 of the S-Bahn. Overall, this results in two trains per hour between St. Gallen and Altstätten and three between Heerbrugg and St. Gallen. On the Sargans–Chur section the good connections from Zürich on two InterCity services and a RegioExpress are supplemented by the S12 (Sargans–Chur) service.
Freight traffic is heavy between Sargans and Buchs, because this is the transit route to the Vorarlberg and to the rest of Austria. The trains from France (Mulhouse) and the Limmattal marshalling yard (west of Zürich) to the Hall in Tirol marshalling yard use the route through the Buchs border crossing. The crossing at St. Margrethen is only used by trains to and from the Wolfurt marshalling yard. The Buchs marshalling yard serves the whole Swiss Rhine valley.
Since 2004 DB Cargo has been operating freight trains from Stuttgart Kornwestheim via the electrified Lake Line and then via Rorschach and St. Margrethen to the Wolfurt marshalling yard to avoid the use of diesel locomotives on the Lake Constance Belt Railway and the Ulm–Friedrichshafen railway.