Lugging luggage around on trains--no way! After doing this in England several years ago I jokingly teased Peter that he was beginning to grow elongated arms and began to call him the ape man.

Accordingly, we bought the Swiss fly-rail baggage program for our two large suitcases for $24 Can. per bag. The tags in their green plastic casings were mailed to our home and all we had to do was to fill out a customs declaration ("nothing to declare") and attach the tags  to the bags. 

On September 1. 2001 we flew from Edmonton to Zurich via Toronto. Arriving in Zurich's Kloten Airport at 09:30 hrs on September 2, we took the train into the city and walked from the hauptbahnhof to the Limmathof Hotel ( booked in Canada a week earlier). It was only a 5 minute walk made all the easier with jetlag by having only our two small carry-ons.

The next day we took the only direct train to Locarno, (depart  07:07; arrive 09:59). Lo and behold, there sitting in the baggage room of the Locarno train station were our suitcases. Just like magic!

On the return trip to Zurich on 30 September we did not ship the suitcases all the way to Canada due to increased security concerns post-September 11. But we did the next best thing, sending them directly to the Zurich airport (~$10 CHF each) while we took the train to Zurich (only one change - in Bellizona) and stayed overnight at the Hotel du Theatre, just around the corner from the Limmathof Hotel. The next day (October 1st) our bags were waiting for us in the SBB baggage room in Terminal B beneath the airport. Travel doesn't get any more convenient than this.