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).
High-speed rail in Europe
To address transalpine freight and passenger bottlenecks on its roads and railways, Switzerland launched the Rail2000 and NRLA projects. The first stage of the Rail2000 project finished in 2005, included a new high-speed rail track between Bern and Olten with an operating speed of 200 km/h. The NRLA project has built faster north-south rail tracks across the Swiss Alps by constructing base tunnels several hundred metres below the level of the old tunnels. The 35 km Lötschberg Base Tunnel opened in 2007 where New Pendolino trains run at 250 km/h. The 57 km Gotthard Base Tunnel (Top speed 250 km/h) was opened in 2016. The second stage of Rail2000 includes line upgrades in canton Valais (200 km/h) and between Biel/Bienne and Solothurn (200 km/h). The start of work is planned for 2012–2016.