As competition intensifies across Swiss regions ahead of the Federal Council's June decision on the 2045 railway infrastructure plan, officials in the canton of St. Gallen have released the canton's wish list. In an interview published Sunday by SWI swissinfo.ch, Patrick Ruggli, head of the canton's public transport office, outlined three priorities aimed at improving international and regional travel. The first priority is upgrading the St. Gallen and Rosach stations to support direct international S-Bahn services to Austria, running every half hour. Currently, cross-border commuters must change trains in St. Magreten, a bottleneck for businesses along the Rhine Valley. Secondly, the cantonal government hopes to eliminate the single-track section between Rosach and the city of Rosach, which currently limits freight and passenger capacity along Lake Constance. The third request is to add double track to the Tifenwinkel–Müllerhorn section of the Lake Wallen corridor to stabilize long-distance train schedules connecting Zurich, Salgans, and neighboring Liechtenstein and Austrian destinations.
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Stakeholders believe that, combined with key national projects under construction such as the Brütten Tunnel (Winter-Zurich), these measures will ultimately reduce the journey from Zurich to St. Gallen to under 60 minutes, creating a hub for international freight and business travel in eastern Switzerland. For business travel planners, the message is clear: medium-term rail connections in eastern Switzerland will improve, but competition for funding will be fierce. Companies in the region with significant commuter or export logistics flows should actively lobby federal authorities during the consultation period to ensure their transport corridors are not overlooked.
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