On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 17:00:17 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

1945 Paddington SLOW
Calling at Maidenhead, Taplow, Marlow, Barlow and Farlow, and every other
bloody place between here and Timbuktu
Arrives Paddington 2239 (tomorrow)

Or maybe:-

1945 SOUTH HAMPSTEAD
(then London Euston)
Calling at lots of places

(Sorry, don't recall the last stop before Padd to use that example
)

How do Switzerland and Germany approach this problem?

Germany approaches it poorly, as it does with most PIS things.
However, the sort of thing you'd see is this

dep 19 45 RegionalExpress
haelt ueberall

Maidenhead
Taplow

L O N D O N P A D D I N G T O N

(where the "haelt ueberall" means "stops everywhere").

That said, Germany operates a very distinct system of train classes
(as do the Netherlands), and a RegionalBahn or RegionalExpress (yes,
some of these stop everywhere - the use of this class refers more to
its presence within a regular interval timetable) isn't likely to be
your quickest way to $BIG_CITY if there is another option. So that's
more or less enough.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.