answer: yes and no
if i am not mistaken there will be at least in part a cooperation with neighboring countries. But lets say that a train from Hamburg arrives in Basel, at any rate the passanger will have to wait maximum half an hour until he will have a connection with Zürich, Bern or Geneva. But let me say another thing: Switzerland is a country which really works... In Italy, Germany, France or Austria things are not that perfect as here (sounds stupid, but it is true). So Switzerland is going it's own way. Just as an example. The EU are discussing a long time where and when to build tunnels crossing the Alps. There is a lot of blabla, although the financing would come partly from the entire Union. Here there is not a lot of blabla. 1. There is an idea of building new tunnels 2. It is being discussed by the parliament, organizations, media 3. Financing is being evaluated 4. The parliament decides if it will approve the project 5. There is a plebiscite (mish'al am) on the project and the financing 6. Building start according to timetable and financing 7. There is a tunnel This is exactly the case. The Swiss people decided that they want to spend 30 billion Swiss francs (90 billion shekel) on the improvement of public transport in a period of 20 or 30 years, and as the people wished it, it will be implemented (since it would be a break with the constitution not to do it, and the politicians will not be reelected). There are now 2 tunnels in the building: Lötschberg tunnel, connecting Basel with Milano, which will be almost 40km long and will be inaugurated in 2007. The new Gotthard tunnel connecting Zürich and Milano, which will be 57km long and will be opened in 2011 The EU will not finance it, since Switzerland is not a member state. Back to your question: it is definitely better to be as well connected with the other countries as within the national cities, but one cannot wait for the other countries to implement the same system, and secondly the quantity of international passangers in relation to national passangers is almost neglectable. Moreover Switzerland is incredibly well connected to France and Germany, since it has the city of Basel, which is directly bordering these two countries. Thus Basel is the end of three rail systems. The German, French and Swiss one, and there are indeed 3 stations: Basel SBB, Basel SNCF, Basel DB. Most lines which go from Paris to the Alsace region end at Basel, and most Rhine valley lines too end there. So if I want to go from Zurich to Frankfurt or Paris, I simply take any train to Basel (every 20 min. or so), and will have to wait max. one hour until I have the train to Frankfurt or Paris. The other possibility is of course to take the 3 times daily train from Zürich to Paris, but it makes me less flexible and I will have to pay more, since I will have to make a reservation.