About this journey

The journey begins at Lucerne station, a building whose distinctive cupola has defined the city's rail gateway since 1896, when Hans Wilhelm Auer's design replaced an earlier terminus that had stood since 1856. That original station marked the southern end of the Schweizerische Centralbahn main line from Olten and Basel; the replacement was oriented at almost 90° to it, requiring a new approach on embankments and cuttings. The tracks here were electrified in 1922 together with the line from Olten.

The service is S3 of the Lucerne S-Bahn, running hourly between Lucerne and Brunnen. The train is an SBB RBDe 560, built by Schindler. As the route progresses southeast, it follows the Gotthard railway toward the Urnersee, the arm of Lake Lucerne whose shores hold the Rütli meadow — the traditional founding site of the Swiss Confederation. Brunnen station itself opened in 1882, when the Gotthardbahn inaugurated the section from Immensee to Bellinzona, and was rebuilt in 1903 as traffic outgrew the original structure. Today it sits on the Gotthard railway and is served by both long-distance InterRegio trains and the S-Bahn, making it a meeting point of regional and trunk services at the southern edge of this roughly one-hour-and-quarter run.