TGV timetables / schedules?
I am planning to get to Zurich on Jun 13 and I land in Paris on Jun 12 at 16:40PM. While I could fly, the train doesn't look so bad. I am trying to find a train around 6PM going to somewhere that would get me closer to Zurich. I have already figured out the TGV Lyria stops at Dijon, Belfort-Montbéliard, Mulhouse and Basel. Searched SNCF for CDG-Dijon and the train is at 19:57 which is no good, I am incoming from Vancouver, I would die waiting two hours for my train. There is a train to Lyon at 17:57 which is great but for my life I can't figure out where does it stop because going all the way to Lyon is clearly counterproductive.
What I can't find on the SNCF site are timetables. I can find realtime departures (useless) and a route finder which is equally useless. I am 100% these exist but where are they?
Best Answer
CDG-Zürich is not an easy one by train, honestly.
Trains from Paris (center) to Zürich use the LGV Sud-Est, go through Dijon, then on to the LGV Rhin-Rhone, Mulhouse and Basel (red on the map). They still take a bit over 4 hours.
Most trains from CDG going in that general direction either run on the LGV Est towards Strasbourg (blue), or the LGV Sud-Est down towards Lyon (more often Lyon Airport, I believe), green on the map. However, there are no stations in the shared red/green segment.
There is indeed a train going from CDG to Mulhouse, but as you noted, it's a bit too late for your taste.
So you could take a TGV from CDG to Strasbourg, then TER down to Basel and an IR to Zurich (depart CDG 18:28, arrive in Zurich 00:24).
The other option is to get from CDG to Paris Gare de Lyon where you can get a direct TGV to Zurich (depart Gare de Lyon 18:23, arrive in Zurich 22:26). Timing in Paris is a bit tight, though, you would need to be at the CDG TGV station by 17:20 to have a chance to catch that TGV, and you are dependent on the notoriously unreliable RER B and D.
Not really sure there are any other easy options, you probably would have to go through Lyon and Geneva, which is quite a detour.
Note the SNCF site will not show connections with more than 2 changes, while the DB or SBB sites will.
I really think your best option here is still to fly from CDG to Zurich.
Edit
If you want to split the trip, you can either stop in Strasbourg, Basel, or anywhere the TER Alsace stops in between.
For instance, the 18:58 train at CDG arrives at 20:58 in Strasbourg. You then have many choices for Strasbourg-Zürich in the morning the next day.
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TGV tickets can usually be booked up to 90 days in advance. Journeys with a connection to a TGV train in France can usually be booked up to 90 days in advance but this can vary. Journeys connecting to Thalys trains to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany usually go on sale 120 days in advance but this can vary.Do you have to book TGV in advance?
For long-distance trains including all TGV, Intercit\xe9s & Intercit\xe9s de Nuit overnight trains, reservation is compulsory, but there are usually seats available even on the day of travel and you can buy a ticket immediately before the train departs. But there are much cheaper fares if you pre-book.Is TGV and SNCF the same?
The TGV (French: Train \xe0 Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously TurboTrain \xe0 Grande Vitesse) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 1974 and presented the project to President Georges Pompidou who approved it.Are TGV trains on time?
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Answer 2
Not sure whether this is what you are looking for, but this link seems to work for me. Basically you can enter your "From" and "To" place directly on https://www.sncf.com/en.
Unless you can catch the 18:23 in Paris (which should arrive in Zurich at 22:26) you might be better off with spending a night in Paris and taking the TGV leaving 07:23 on Jun 13th to arrive in Zurich at 11:26. There are some connections in-between, but they require you to change the train quite often during the night. If you want to look into those anyway, try https://www.sbb.ch/ which worked better for me in this case.
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