“Those, who invented this trail (likely in a well-furnished office, staring at the empty coffee mug, Friday after lunch, still in food coma) should be forced to hike it”.
(unknown hiker, after reaching Faido in 2018)
They advertise it as one of the last big adventures in highly developed Switzerland. Nothing could be farer away from the truth.
This trail is as adventurous as Central Park in NYC. Nothing against central park – its a nice resting place in Manhattan. But would you hike rounds in central park for 488 km or 303 miles? Have you thought about the surface in Central Park?
If you love man-made traffic infrastructure, if you love asphalt and concrete to hike on, if you like to see cows and cars, run down towns and farms, this could be your hike.
If you like it more not to watch the main north-south connection for car & truck traffic all day, you are already in trouble. There is nothing adventurous on this hike. Switzerland has extremely nice parts to hike – but to choose the worst parts and called it Trans Swiss Trail is a shame. However, this is the genius idea of SwissMobility
It is a classical tourism-marketing idea: Let’s boost the number of visitors in the most unattractive parts of Switzerland by creating a hiking trail.
This trail however is long – people willing to hike it, are hopefully not complete beginners. Or you choose to do under 10 miles per day as a section hiker and spend more time in restaurants drinking a good tea or a carefully selected soda.
You need a lot of discipline to hike such a trail with a certain speed. It was apparently signalized the first time in 2002 and for some time they had even a luggage service, so you could slack-pack the entire trail.
Hiking this trail in its current form is a waste of time. The planers assumed that hikers need accommodation every mile or so but you buy this with road walking over more than half of the entire trail.
Most parts of the trail are unattractive from a hikers perspective.
If you are interested in railway history, you may find some interesting spots here and there but this does not justify to hike such a long distance along a motorway. Even railway afficionados are better served with hiking somewhere else and visit some spots by bike.
Pictures from the TST
Have a look at the pullover of the boy! Guns n’ Roses where popular in 1993. 
