Quoted By:
Swiss railway employee here.
Train tickets are pretty expensive if you're dumb.
A 1-hour trip costs like 25 bucks but depending where you are, there are cheaper monthly and annual passes for commuters.
By the way, all trains running on certain route cost the same, so there's no difference in price if you take the InterCity or a regional train. There's also no discount if you book early, except if you do it online, but then you're bound on the train you picked.
The price can also be reduced by buying a so called Half-Fare card, which costs around 150 bucks a year. With that, all tickets are only half the price, so quite a good deal if you travel once or twice a week. This also covers all buses and boats.
Same with the GA travelcard, the ultimate pass of Switzerland, it allows you to travel for free through the whole country for a year.
Around 2.5 million people have the 1/2-Card and 250k have a GA, so they're both rather popular in a country of 8 million.
