Zürich Seebach railway station
Trains on the S6 provide a half-hourly connection to Zürich Hauptbahnhof station, taking 12 minutes for the journey via the southern connector and Oerlikon station. In the opposite direction, S6 trains continue to Baden station, taking 28 minutes for the journey. The station also sees significant through freight traffic, most of which takes the Furttal line in order to avoid passing through central Zürich, using the northern connector onto or off the Zürich–Winterthur line.
Zabergäu Railway
The narrow-gauge Zabergäu Railway did not meet modern requirements after World War II and, as early as 1954, the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway) introduced a parallel bus service with corresponding reductions to the passenger train timetable. On 20 June 1959, there was a serious accident when a railway bus was hit by a train operated by the Franconia Railway on the level crossing at Lauffen am Neckar. The bus, which was full of passengers, was dragged for 400 m along the track and 45 people lost their lives. In the wake of the Lauffen bus crash, the villages and local businesses along the route set up the ‘Zabergäu Action Group’. The latter succeeded in having the railway timetable re-established, the track re-laid with standard gauge and the line modernised. The conversion work was carried out in phases between 3 May 1964 and 25 July 1965. These improvements included the removal of many level crossings and resulted in the maximum speed of 25 km/h being increased to 60 km/h. This achieved a reduction in the journey time between the two terminuses from 69 minutes to 35 minutes.