The inauguration of the Gotthard Railway gave the go-ahead for the railway's first summer schedule for passenger trains. The line with its longest rail tunnel in the world could finally be admired by everyone who could afford a train ticket. Curiosity, and the National Exhibition, accounted for the peak in first class traffic in the early years. More than a million passengers travelled the Gotthard Railway in 1883, its first full year of operation. After the initial wave of enthusiasm, the line operated as a successful international railway line The number of passengers on the Gotthard Railway continued to increase reaching two million in 1897. The tons of freight that passed on the railway exceeded all expectations. Soon the Gotthard transit surpassed the competing international alpine transit lines in Austria, Italy and France.

To advertise the Gotthard Railway, travel guides emphasised the decrease in travel time. It offered tourists from north-western Europe an efficient connection to the popular Lake Maggiore, Lake Como and Lake of Lugano as well as to the cities Milan, Naples and Rome. Before the opening of the Gotthard Railway a trip from Lucerne to Milan took 32 hours. The travellers took the steam ship over the Lake of Lucerne and changed to a mail coach over the Gotthard Pass by which they continued further south. In 1882, the railways covered the same distance in nine hours and 21 minutes; in 1891, the improved connections reduced the travel time to seven hours and 44 minutes. Travel guides presented the Gotthard railway not only as the swiftest but also as the most impressive transit in Europe. Moreover, they noted the ease to plan and organise a trip: with the new railway people could visit Italy for a short period without laborious preparations.

Yet, the fast connection threatened to marginalise Switzerland as a tourist destination because tourists would simply speed through Switzerland towards their Italian destinations. To prevent this from happening, an avalanche of leaflets, maps, posters and travel guides saw the light, which recommended tourists to visit the region with the Gotthard Railway. In a popular travel guide of that time, the German pedagogue, theologian and writer Woldemar Kaden wrote: “What a pity would it be when Switzerland would sink into a transit country.