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).
History of rail transport in Switzerland
After years of heavy investment in roads in the postwar years, the share of rail in the total passenger market in Switzerland had been significantly reduced by the end of the 1960s. At this time, Swiss Federal Railways decided that changes were necessary to increase rail patronage. More trains were operated in order to increase frequencies; this led to a 75% increase in passengers between 1971 and 1983 on the Bern–Zürich route. In the 1970s, the Swiss government and SFR decided to make further improvements in rail services. In 1972, the SFR introduce a regular interval timetable (German: "Taktfahrplan"). Under this timetable, trains arrive and leave each station at the same minute past every hour. Services at Zurich station were reorganised so that trains arrived on each line before the hour or half-hour and left after the hour or half-hour, making it easier to change to trains on other lines.