Avoiding tilting trains in Switzerland

Question

I really don't like tilting trains, because I always feel slightly sick in there. With normal trains I don't have any problems at all. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tilting trains on the route from Zürich to Lugano. Therefore I have two questions:

Is there a way to tell in advance if it will be a tilting train?

Is there any other rail-based option to get from Zürich to Lugano avoiding tilting trains at all?

Answer 1

At least a partial answer:

Raileurope and Wiki has told me that EC (EuroCity, formerly called Cisalpino, not all EC, just the former Cisalpino) and so called ICN (Intercity-Neigezug, German for Intercity Tilting Train) trains are tilt-enabled.

Using the Deutche Bahn Travel Service one can exclude EC and IC (InterCity) trains from the search by using the "Advanced selection of means of transport". Uncheck the EC/IC check box and search away, it should result in transportation without any tilting trains.

It should be noted that unchecking the IC check box should only be used on this route because there only ICN trains. Doing the same for Sweden would result in removing the non-tilting IC trains but not the tilting X2000 trains. But there is a way to solve this too.

When searching with All kinds of means of transportation you will see a "Products" column, it says IC, EC, IR, TGV or ICE depending on where you are searching. The EC trains on this route are easy to dismiss, but as mentioned above the InterCity trains cannot be dismissed as easily. But if you open the details for the IC trip in question it will say "Intercity Neigezug" (ICN) in the description if the train is a tilting InterCity train.

This method of course requires one to know if a certain train type is tilt or not. But it isn't that easy, because there are EC trains that don't tilt. And the ones that do don't have a special name like the ICN does. I have no good solution for this apart from doing a lot of research to find what kind of trains operate in a certain area.

Wiki has a list of trains with this feature, but I am not sure if it is up to date.

EDIT: To clarify, the IC trains in Europe are not tilt trains. Only the ICN trains. Some EC trains, such as on the route in question do tilt, but there are many EC trains in Europe that do not tilt.

Maybe the train company selling the tickets can also answer this question. It might be better to call the international ticket office, in my experience they have helpful travel and train fanatics that answer the phones. I've used this service with DB and SJ, if they didn't have an answer for my question they have been able to find out and contact me later.

Thanks to @Vince for pointing out that my answer could be misinterpreted.

Answer 2

Late to answer but notheworthy:

During the December 2017 timetable change of Swiss railways, decision was taken to phase out the ICN designation of tilting trains (this was related to a specific rolling stock) and replace that by regular IC naming. This was done as a global move to simplify the network perception, as long-distance (IC and IR) routes now have numbers, a bit like local lines in S-bahn/RER areas.

Lines usually operated with tilting stock are so because of the slightly reduced travel time on twisty routes. One big principle of Swiss trains scheduling is to allow timed transfers at major hubs.

Now, the lines operated using tilting trains are:

• IC 5 Lausanne to St. Gallen (sometimes Geneva Airport to St. Gallen) : always using ICN stock, except for the occasional Lausanne-Neuchâtel extra service operated with regular cars. Take the route through Fribourg and Bern instead, operated as IC 1. Between Olten and St. Gallen, both routes are the same. IC 1 is operated using regular double-decker stock. Reaching the Jura foot route stations between Lausanne and Olten is quite impossible without a tilting train, unless you make your way using local services radiating from Bern, Fribourg and other reachable cities from the IC 1 route.
• IC 2 Zurich HB to Lugano : mostly using ICN stock if not always. Stretch between Zug and Arth-Goldau is a twisty single track on a lake shore, the perfect terrain where tilting stock has an advantage. To avoid, you could make a detour through Lucerne and/or take the shorter route to Ertsfeld then change into the slower train that takes the historic Gotthard route. And it is very scenic although it takes longer. The newest Gotthard base tunnel, longest in the world, cuts 1 hour compared to the historic route.
• IC 21 Basel SBB to Lugano : same remarks
• EC Geneva - Milano Centrale: operated using ETR610 stock. Very comfortable, less aggressive tilts, those are the newest tilting trains available unless you get an Trenitalia-branded train which is a bit older. The SBB-branded ones are newer. This is difficult to predict.
• EC Basel - Milano Centrale or Zürich HB - Milano Centrale : operated using ETR610
• EC Frankfurt - Milano Centrale : operated using ETR610

Answer 3

First note that tilting trains are used in specific areas of Europe; some countries have none and some have a lot. On Wikipedia you can find references to it. Apparently you know this but not everyone does, and it could be useful to know in advance where you might find them.

When searching the CFF website, I found that they give information about your train. From Zurich to Lugano, you can have an IC-tilting train, an InterRegio or maybe other trains (for my request it says you need to take a tilting train for at least part of the ride).

Answer 4

FWIW, an update to the answers…

In Switzerland, domestic tilting trains are marked ICN (as it has been said). Tilting train sets may occasionally appear in non-ICN-marked services (a good example is the service between Basel SBB and Zürich Airport which do not serve Zürich HB).

Tilting trains are also used on some (most) EC connections between Switzerland (Genève/Basel/Bern/Zürich) and Italy (Milano).

There are no tilting trains between Switzerland and Germany, France, and Austria.