It would be great to have real high speed trains in Switzerland. Unfortunately it's just not possible though. A train can only go very fast if the tracks are very long and straight. In switzerland there just is no space for that. The non mountainous parts of the country are densely populated. Even if you have tracks where you could go very fast such as the Gotthard tunnel it's not worth it to buy trains that go that fast for the very few passages that actually allow them to make full use of their speed. Besides if not all trains on the network can go this fast you need to increase the interval between trains which you obviously don't want to.
Sorry, but hard disagree. For the main route that goes threw the population, from Genf to St.Gallen, you can absolutely make a new high speed rail line.
Doing such a high speed lane would open up massive amount of capacity. More local trains, more regional trains and importantly more cargo trains.
Switzerland has a modal share of over 20% for rail, and if we want to boost that to 40%, then new high speed rail is a must.
> The non mountainous parts of the country are densely populated.
Switzerland is not even close to as populated as Southern England, and somehow they are building high speed rail. And the British aren't exactly known to be great infrastructure builders.
> Besides if not all trains on the network can go this fast you need to increase the interval between trains which you obviously don't want to.
You would use special high speed trains on the new high speed lines and use all the other trains on the other lanes. Just as they will do on HS2.
