Zurich Airport
Zürich Airport railway station is located underneath the "Airport Centre". The station has frequent Zürich S-Bahn services, plus direct InterRegio, InterCity, and Eurocity services, to many places including Basel, Bern, Biel/Bienne, Brig, Geneva, Konstanz, Lausanne, Lucerne, Munich, Romanshorn, St. Gallen, and Winterthur. There are some 13 trains per hour to Zürich Hauptbahnhof, Zürich's main city centre station, with a journey time of between 10 and 15 minutes. By changing trains at Hauptbahnhof, most other places in Switzerland can be reached in a few hours.
History of rail transport in Switzerland
In the late 1960s, the SFR developed a proposal for a new east-west trunkline (German: "Haupttransversale", NHT). This was considered by the "Swiss Transport Commission" (German: "Schweizerischen Gesamtverkehrskommission", GVK). In 1977, after almost six years work, the GVK submitted a 400-page report, which recommended the construction of a new railway between Geneva and Lake Constance and between Basel and Olten. On these routes, a total of 120 kilometres of new line would allow operation of trains at up to 200 kilometres per hour, similar to the French TGVs. A Federal Government committee supported SFR's proposal but considered that investment should be initially concentrated on the sections of route between Basel, Olten and Bern. This proposal was widely seen as too narrow in its benefits and in mid 1984 the SFR established an expert group under the name Rail 2000 to develop a broader approach. This group developed a plan to improve rail transport throughout Switzerland based on the approach of co-ordinated regular interval trains. The federal parliament voted to approve "Rail 2000" in May 1986. In particular, it granted CHF 5.4 billion for the Mattstetten–Rothrist new line between Olten and Bern and for a connection from near Herzogenbuchsee to Solothurn. This was endorsed by a referendum in 1987 with a majority of 57.0%.