Night-Time Rail Works Disrupt Montreux–Vevey and Simmental Tourist Lines

While aviation headlines dominated Sunday, rail passengers in western Switzerland faced their own mobility challenge as the Montreux Oberland Bernois (MOB) group began an intensive maintenance cycle on several scenic lines. From the evening of 21 June, trains between Vevey and Blonay on the CEV rack-railway are replaced by buses between 20:10 and 23:51, and the Montbovon–Zweisimmen section is closed overnight until 25 June for track renewal, with services restarting each morning at 05:21. The timing collides with the start of the summer tourist season: the affected corridors feed the ‘Chocolate Train’ and the GoldenPass Express—popular with overseas visitors and expatriate families planning day trips. Hoteliers in Château-d’Œx report a spike in late-evening taxi bookings, while tour operators have had to re-issue itineraries to Japanese and Gulf groups whose coaches now rendezvous at alternative stations. For commuters living in the Lavaux vineyards the impact is more modest but still tangible. The replacement buses add roughly 20 minutes to the uphill ride to Blonay, complicating connections to the last InterCity services at Vevey. Employers along the Riviera—including Nestlé’s global headquarters—have been advised by the regional mobility association to allow flexible start times for shift workers over the coming week. MOB says the condensed work window will accelerate a CHF 28 million infrastructure programme—including the installation of European Train Control System (ETCS) balises that will eventually allow seamless through-running of the new gauge-changing GoldenPass rolling stock between Montreux and Interlaken. Completing the works at night avoids daytime closures but requires partial suspension of the funicular to Mont-Pèlerin from 22 June until mid-September. Passengers are encouraged to consult the SBB or MOB apps for real-time updates. Though minor on the national scale, the works illustrate how regional maintenance can ripple into the wider expatriate and leisure travel market—a reminder to global-mobility managers that even Switzerland’s famed timetable precision occasionally needs breathing space for renewal.