«The journey takes only 3 hours and 17 minutes. There is no better way to go from Milan to Zurich or vice versa. The train is the most comfortable, most sustainable methodmore projected into the future.”
As Luigi CorradiCEO and general manager of Trenitalia, introduced the renewal of the collaboration of the FS group company with the Swiss Federal Railways. The extension of an agreement, signed this morning during an event at Milan Central Station, which it has already made the two countries closertouching along its route popular stops such as Lugano or Como, stretching up to Venice and other tricolor cities with high tourism intensity.
The collaboration started in 2009 and, so far, saw approximately 30 million passengers board. «Since 2019, growth in this corridor between Italy and Switzerland has amounted to 20 percent; it has been 40 percent since 2016. It is the sign that the two companies cooperate profitably and that one can learn from the other” he said Véronique Stephandirector of the passenger market at FFS.
In addition to taking stock of the numbers – they were 2.4 million in total passengers who traveled on Eurocity trains between Switzerland and Italy in 2023, are 40 convoys travel between the two countries every day – the meeting served to show the roadmap, or rather the path on the tracks for the next few years: starting from 2026 an additional route will be introduced between Zurich, Milan and Venice; furthermore, there will be direct connections between the Swiss capital and Florence and Livorno and vice versa, making the network even more widespreadwhich can already count on further routes that extend to Genoa and Bologna.
«We are ready to welcome travellers on newer, even more comfortable and sustainable trainsi” added Corradi. In fact, it was presented during the Milanese event the new euroCity brand, a green logo that also returns in the renewed interiors of the trains and underlines its vocation for protecting the environment. «We didn’t limit ourselves to repainting them» specified the CEO of Trenitalia «but we proceeded to renew the interiors, in particular by covering the seats with plastic materials recovered from the sea. It’s about a concrete example of circular economy».
The new interior of the modernized ETR610 trainMarco Morello
Panorama.it had the opportunity to board one of the new, already modernized trains, the ETR610, which runs as euroCity between Switzerland and Italy. From 2026, the modernization work will concern the entire fleetwith interventions such as fast Wi-Fi, the installation of power sockets to recharge electric bicycles, restaurant carriages with a high-quality food and drink offering that represents a gastronomic synthesis of the peculiarities of the two countries.
The contact with the first class and the bistro area is positive. In addition to being sustainable, The seats are also comfortable and welcoming. They offer good legroom, discreet privacy in single or side-by-side seats, the right amount of conviviality in those with four, two in the direction of travel, another two in the opposite direction.
The green color characterizes the new modernized eC trainsMarco Morello
There is never a shortage of power sockets, one per passenger; in some cases there are additionally first generation USB ports. If the seats are enveloping and ergonomic, the tables they are large and have a high-quality appearance reminiscent of wood finishes. Even for the longest routes – from Zurich to Venice it takes approximately 6 hours in total – there will be no shortage of comfort.
