Liechtenstein by train, nine kilometres and three stops

Liechtenstein does have a railway, which surprises plenty of people who assume otherwise. What it lacks is a train of any real use to a visitor. A short line run by Austrian Railways passes through the country, with three stops and very few services, and international trains cover it without stopping. Here’s what exists, what I can’t promise you, and how I’d use rail to get there.

Nine kilometres of track that aren’t Liechtenstein’s

The Office of Statistics sums it up in its 2026 yearbook. Austrian Railways, ÖBB, run a nine-kilometre line with three stops through Liechtenstein, linking Feldkirch in Austria with Buchs in Switzerland. In the ÖBB timetable those three stops are Nendeln, Forst Hilti and Schaan-Vaduz. The first has a page of its own, Nendeln and its Roman villa. The other stations in the table, Tisis, Gisingen and Altenstadt, are already in Austria.

The name catches people out. Schaan-Vaduz isn’t in the capital at all but in Schaan, right beside the bus station. If you ever use it, a short bus hop still stands between you and Vaduz. What to see in that municipality is covered in Schaan.

Why does the Railjet sail straight through?

The line carries the EC and Railjet services between Zurich and Vienna, and according to the ÖBB timetable they cross the country without stopping between Buchs and Feldkirch. The trains that do stop are regional ones, and in the timetable valid from 14 December 2025 to 13 June 2026 they mostly ran at the morning and evening peaks, aimed at people going to work.

For me that’s the key to understanding the country. Of the 43,441 people working in Liechtenstein at the end of 2024, 24,943 came in from abroad each day, according to the Office of Statistics. The regional train seems built around them, not around a visitor turning up mid-morning.

Autumn 2026, what I can’t confirm

Here I’ll be blunt. The open timetable I checked shows no trains at all at Schaan-Vaduz or Nendeln between September and November 2026, which suggests a suspension, perhaps for engineering work. I haven’t found an official ÖBB or LIEmobil notice explaining it either, and I won’t vouch for the services listed after the December timetable change without that notice.

My advice is simple. If you’re travelling this autumn, don’t count on the train inside the country, check oebb.at before setting off and treat the bus as your main plan. LIEmobil also posts the Feldkirch to Buchs regional line table on its timetables page, so you can check there too.

The stations you’d actually use

To arrive by rail, the stations that matter are across the border. Sargans, 17 km from Vaduz, has the 12E express on weekdays and route 11 daily, as detailed in Sargans to Vaduz. Feldkirch, 15 km away, has the direct 11 in 45 minutes, explained in Feldkirch to Vaduz.

Buchs, in the canton of St. Gallen, is the closest at just 7 km. The LandesMuseum suggests route 12 to Schaan, Bahnhof and route 11 to Vaduz, Post, and the official Swiss timetable gives about 18 minutes including the change. LIEmobil also runs route 24, from Vaduz to Buchs via Sevelen, crossing the Rhine on the Swiss side. There’s even a LIEbike stand at Buchs station for the country’s shared e-bikes.

One ticket for the lot

The easy approach is not to think in two tickets. The SBB Mobile app sells journeys to Liechtenstein, and LIEmobil’s fares reach Sargans and Buchs stations and central Feldkirch. If you hold a Swiss GA travelcard, it’s valid on the whole LIEmobil network, including the rail stretch between Buchs and Nendeln. Zone fares and passes are in Liechtenstein’s buses.

If you’d rather not plan the fare at all, LIEmobil points to Fairtiq, a check-in app valid in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Vorarlberg, cross-border journeys included. You swipe in when you board and out when you finish, and it works out the ticket. A LIEmobil single isn’t a single ride either but a time window, up to two hours from three zones, which is plenty for a station-to-hotel transfer with a coffee stop in between. The one thing it won’t accept is cash, so if your card is the kind that charges for foreign transactions, sort that out before you leave the UK.

A railway worth a glance, not a journey

None of this makes the line pointless to look at. Schaan-Vaduz station, in pale stone with the round canopy of the bus station alongside, is where the country’s bus and rail networks meet, and it’s a sensible place to stay if you want easy connections north and west. I’d just treat the tracks as scenery until an official timetable says otherwise.