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).
Zürich Underground Railway
Zürich's transportation projects were typical for the seemingly boundless growth euphoria of the 1960s. For example, there was a vision of turning the Stauffacher/Sihlporte area into a modern business centre of gigantic proportions – a kind of "Manhattan on the Sihl" – making Zurich a truly global city. Initially, there was no real opposition. Except for the communist Swiss Party of Labour at local level and the Social Democratic Party at cantonal level, all political parties supported the construction of the underground railway and the S-Bahn system. An opinion poll conducted in December 1971 showed that 81% of Zurich's population was in favour of both projects. Opposition against the seemingly unstoppable growth of traffic first arose in 1970, when plans for rebuilding the Heimplatz in a car-friendly manner did not make it through a local referendum. Protests continued in 1971, with heavy resistance against the Zürich express road Y, a project for connecting three motorways in the city centre. After the Club of Rome had presented its report "The Limits to Growth" at the 1972 St. Gallen Symposium, an anti-growth stance also started to form amongst the general public.