Basel<>Bern (direct) would need tunnels.. The other 2 routes are pretty flat. Most of the Swiss economy is in the valley between the Jura range and the Alps. T

Basel<>Bern (direct) would need tunnels.. The other 2 routes are pretty flat. Most of the Swiss economy is in the valley between the Jura range and the Alps. The necessary tunnels for Basel would probably cost less than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel But Bern<>Zurich is the SBB's bottleneck.