These are the largest Swiss communities without a train station

Huber quizzer Patrick Toggweiler comes running very excitedly to our desk island shortly before the end of the day. Everyone knows immediately: he has another story to contribute to the data team. “Hey, what are the largest cities in Switzerland that don’t have a train station?” he asks the group. Because Switzerland expert Reto Fehr is in the home office, we just look at each other with a bit of surprise and because I also find the question exciting, I immediately start investigating.

To get an overview, let me first look at the Swiss railway network. With a length of 5,652 kilometers over an area of ​​41,285 km² With the exception of the small states of Vatican City and St. Kitts and Nevis, Switzerland has the densest railway network in the world.

But now to the train stations: The Federal Tourist Office (BAV) offers a list of all public transport stops in the country on the open data platform Public Transport Switzerland. Because the definition of a city can vary widely, I look at which communities do not have train stations.

But the term train station is also not precisely defined. After much thought and consultation with colleagues, I decide to classify all train, tram and metro stops in Switzerland as train stations. The main reason for this definition is the trams in the Basel and Geneva conurbations, as well as the metro in Lausanne, which have more of a regional S-Bahn character than a city tram.

The difference is marginal anyway: if you count all train, tram and metro stops as train stations, 1,214 of the 2,134 Swiss municipalities receive nothing. If you only take the train stops, 1243 municipalities do not have a train station. The 29 municipalities that only have a tram or metro stop are…

But back to the communities without a train station: these are located not only in inaccessible mountain areas, but also on the central plateau, far away from the major centers. But there are also exceptions: Volketswil, the most populous municipality without a train station, is located in the Zurich conurbation. Although the S5 line between Zurich and Rapperswil passes through the municipality, the nearest train station is almost 100 meters across the border in the neighboring municipality of Schwerzenbach.

Behind Volketswil lies Veyrier, a municipality in the Geneva conurbation on the border with France. In the third-placed municipality of Valais, the railway line runs across the Rhône; Brig train station is only about 100 meters from the municipal border. Other places with more than 10,000 inhabitants - one of many city definitions are the municipality of Gossau in Zurich, the ski destination Crans-Montana and Widnau in the Rhine Valley of St.Gallen.

Well, Toggi, I hope you're happy...