Pls help me with rail passess and tickets for switzerland? are there any diffrence between raileurope and SBB?

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Goddess of Grammar

Raileurope is just a conglomerate of the different national railways. Any Raileurope ticket would be good in Switzerland.

The SBB also has its own offers, but for a minimum of three days (of course you don't HAVE to use it all three days). In my (fairly limited) experience, it's worth getting the Swiss one if you'll only be taking trains in Switzerland, otherwise get the Raileurope one.

With either ticket, you will still have to pay I believe 50% of the cable car ticket to Titlus (I'm guessing about 20CHF), a small supplement for the Golden Pass (perhaps 10CHF), and 50% of the price on the Jungfraujochbahn (about 80CHF).

By the way, your second day could be really exhausting. It's about 10 hours on the train, so you don't have much time to look around along the way. First day sounds great.

Hi Again!
Yes Interlaken to Jungfraujoch and back would be 5 hours on the train, and doable in a day. But you said you were starting and ending your day in Lucerne, and Lucerne to Interlaken is about 2 hours. The Golden Pass with the Panorama cars are only, I think, every two hours, so it would be the wait time that makes for 10 (I guess).

Here's the English version of the SBB site. You can enter Luzern to Luzern via Jungfraujoch and see for yourself how long it takes.

http://www.rail.ch

And as Starwalker said, you do want to spend some time on Jungfrau; there's a stop halfway up that it's worth getting out for (then back up on the next train, 30 min later). I found though that after a couple hours at the top I was feeling kind of tired and ill, from the thin air. And wear a winter coat! When I went, it was very foggy, couldn't see much.

Starwalker is right too, that you don't NEED to reserve on the Golden Pass, but if you want to be guaranteed a spot in the Panorama car, it's worth it. (That's what the 10CHF is for.)

Here's a great day-trip from Lucerne, costs way less than the Jungfraujoch and simply stunning:

http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/navpage.cfm?category=Top_Attractions&subcat=Nature&id=8793

Barista

the sbb is the swiss railway organization. and i belive the raileurope is like a trainticket good for all of europ. so check if a raileurope ticket is good for switzerland. if so, you most likely will have to pay a little extra for the jungfraujoch.
if the ticket is no good for switzerland, go to a trainstation there and let them help you getting the best ticket for your trip!
Hey, have a great time!!!!

Starwalker

just to clarify a few things others have posted... Swiss Pass DOES cover Golden Pass. just hop on, you do not need to pay extra and you will not get in trouble as long as you have SP. (it's only the Bernina, Glacier, Chocolate express that you pay extra for.) the cable car to Titlis is about 80CHF, so you'll pay half price if you have SP. you can buy SP in switzerland, it's no problem; i bought mine at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof. you just need to be able to show a foreign passport.

honestly, i think you're doing too much in too little time. Luzern to Interlaken is 2.5hours. from Interlaken Ost to Jungfraujoch takes another 2.5hours or so. so that's 5 hours for just one way. if you try to make it back to Luzern on the same day, then you'd be on the train for 10 hours. you should spend at least 2-3 hours on Jungfraujoch to make it worthwhile (and that's for just sightseeing, not including time spent if you decide to ski/sled-riding). personally, i don't think it's worth the 10hrs train ride just for that 3 hours on the mountain.

the Jungfrau region is spectacular; you really should be spending 3-4 days living in the mountain towns. but if you only have 2 days to spend in Switzerland, then i say forget about the Jungfrau and save it for another trip. visit Luzern, Bern, Titlis, Zurich, Rapperswil instead, which you can still have a great time doing in the 2d time frame. if you're insistent on Jungfraujoch, then i say skip Titlis. Titlis is really nice and has great cable cars and dramatic snow covered peaks; the Jungfrau has the engineering marvel of the train and more calm/peaceful landscape on top. they're different and pleasant in their own ways. but trying to do one a day is overkill; you won't enjoy yourself and you'll be spending too much time traveling to and fro. consider this itinerary: spend day in Luzern then travel by train to reach Grindelwald or Lauterbrunnen by evening, spend night in Jungfrau region, see Jungfraujoch the next day, leave Jungfrau region in the afternoon. it's not ideal, but it might be better than what you have planned already.

Martin S

Well when I was in Switzerland I used the Swiss Rail Pass, it was good for all trains, buses and boats (ferry). But you had to buy the rail pass before going over. The price was right too, but I don't think it covered the Golden Pass thru Interlaken.

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