The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) said on Tuesday that Switzerland and Italy will stop all cross-border rail services from Thursday because train personnel are not capable of performing the COVID-19 security inspections ordered by the Italian government.
This move affects dozens of daily routes indefinitely, including long-distance trains between Milan and Frankfurt, Germany, and regional trains connecting these two countries.
Many workers transit from northern Italy to Switzerland every day. Switzerland and neighboring countries Italy, Germany and France reduced train services in November, but the rise in the second wave of infections prompted the Italian government to make new requirements, which means that train services will be like the first in the pandemic. The same was stopped in the wave.
A SBB spokeswoman told Reuters that Italy did not explicitly prohibit train travel abroad, but its requirements (including the measurement of passenger temperature) exceeded the capabilities of train personnel, so it decided to close the Swiss-Italian route. SBB said: “The Swiss Federal Railways trains will only travel to the country’s border with Italy.”
