Sweden and Railroads

I am traveling to Sweden this Saturday for 3 weeks.
Anybody have any Hot Spots, or hints on Railroads to see in southern Sweden?

I never made it to Scandinavia , but i have read the most scenic line in the region is in Norway . that is the line to Bergen on the west coast , and specially the branchline to Flam .
Although this is in another country , its only a 400 km ride to Oslo , and a further 400 km to Bergen .

hrrphil wrote:I am traveling to Sweden this Saturday for 3 weeks.
Anybody have any Hot Spots, or hints on Railroads to see in southern Sweden?

I have travelled on the long distance trains in Sweden with Inter-rail ticket. There are several narrow gauge railways but the main lines themselves used to be very good - I haven't been there since privatisation and I hear the very high standards have slipped a good deal since then. There is still a state company SJ (Svenska Jernbanen) but it doesn't run all the trains. There is a tilting high speed train between the main cities, especially Stockholm to Goteborg.

I have seen the narrow gauge train from near Uppsala. It doesn't run all the time.

Of course the most spectacular lines are in the north: Inlandsbanan goes through the woods and past lakes into the Arctic Circle (Privatised now) and the Narvik line is top quality. It runs through the tundra and down to the sea in Norway.

hrrphil wrote:I am traveling to Sweden this Saturday for 3 weeks.
Anybody have any Hot Spots, or hints on Railroads to see in southern Sweden?

A bit odd you put this request on such a short notice! The saturday before you put up your request I left myself for Sweden and Denmark for a four weeks tour. So when making this post I just have returned. If you had put it say a month or so earlier I was amidst my own preparation of my trip to Sweden, now I only can tell you wath you could have seen.

At first the Swedish railways still put up a very good show, only since Connex had taken over the trains to the far north (Narvik, Boden and Luleå) the service to that area has sliped quit a bit with train cancelations and delys op to several hours.

The capital Stockholm has frequent X2000 trains (the tilting onces) to other major scities like Malmö and Göteborg, a supplement is required though. And I would reconmend advanced seat reservations on all long dictance trains.

The Inlandsbanan caters to the tourist and is a good way to travel and to learn the Swedish cuisine, actually the municipalities along the line own it. And used it as a way to actrac tourist to the area.

The Malmbanan which runs from Luleå to Narvik runs through some spectacular landscapes and sees lots of iron ore trains hauled either by the triple unit class Dm3 locomotives or the two unit class Iore locomotives, the first used to be one of the most powerful locomotives of the world the latters is curently the most powerful locomotive of the world.

Hotspots: the Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö which by the way are very interesting cities. Interesting things can be found elwere too, but than you need some expertise and a lots of patience, knowlede of the Swesish railway network and scheduling skills. Furtermore railway musems are located at Gävle and Luleå.

Gijs

NS3737 wrote:

hrrphil wrote:At first the Swedish railways still put up a very good show, only since Connex had taken over the trains to the far north (Narvik, Boden and Luleå) the service to that area has slipped quite a bit with train cancelations and delys op to several hours.

Gijs

That's what I have read. Privatisation in Europe has become a fashion. I really don't know why. It seldom improves services and quite often makes them worse. It doesn't save money, at least in Britain where the whole system costs much more than it used to.

George,

Privatisation is not necessarily a bad thing, it just depents on how to to it. The bad thing on European privatisation is that they uncoupled the link between who owns the track and who runs on it. Having dozens of operators runing on the same track with dispatches having no clue who is who and were to send them is a recipy for chaos.

It must be known that TKAB, the operator who ran the trains to the far north before Connex, did a fairly good job at that and was getting people back on the train. At the end of ther franchise Connex undebid them substantially so Connex got the contract and basically made a mess of it.

Curently the situation in Sweden on passenger trains is that the SJ runs the long distance trains with the exception of the trains to the far north, while a miriad of local operators do take care of local trains mostly under the responsebility of local authorities. Which makes Sweden a very colourful country since each one of these locals has its own paint scheme.

On freigth trains there is Green Cargo which used to be SJ freight and also quite a few others which mostly run trains dedicated to one customer.

Gijs

NS3737 wrote:


It must be known that TKAB, the operator who ran the trains to the far north before Connex, did a fairly good job at that and was getting people back on the train. At the end of ther franchise Connex underbid them substantially so Connex got the contract and basically made a mess of it.

Connex had two franchises in Britain - two of the third rail divisions. They lost the South Central to another company and handed over early; their Southeastern franchise was terminated and taken over by a state owned operator because of their financial ineptness.

[quote="NS3737"]George,

Privatisation is not necessarily a bad thing, it just depents on how to to it. The bad thing on European privatisation is that they uncoupled the link between who owns the track and who runs on it. Having dozens of operators runing on the same track with dispatches having no clue who is who and were to send them is a recipy for chaos.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We in Sweden are happy with Banverket as track owner and manager of train control.
The way the germans are doing it is a wrong way i e to have the same company as owner of DB Netz, Railon, DB AG and so on all under the managing director Mehdorn.
Your statement "dozens of operators runing on the same track with dispatches having no clue who is who and were to send them is a recipy for chaos.
" is completly wrong.
I sincerely hope that all european rails will bee "free" soon.

http://www.banverket.se/default____3515.asp

bengt wrote: Your statement "dozens of operators runing on the same track with dispatches having no clue who is who and were to send them is a recipy for chaos.
" is completly wrong.
I sincerely hope that all european rails will bee "free" soon.

http://www.banverket.se/default____3515.asp

Bengt

Sorry to contradict you, but the plain facts in Great Britain have already proven that I am right at that. To clarify that more with my statement I particulary was refering to the situation in Great Britain. But also in the Netherlands I got delayed since a dispatcher had sent a freight train the wrong way. Also the split has lead to some serious accidents this is well proven in the books Hidden Dangers and Beyond Hidden Dangers. May be Banverket just does a better job as its counterparts in the rest of Europe. As to the Mehdorn thing this has not much to do with privatising railways in particular, he is receiving a lot of flak on how he runs the DBAG in general.

Gijs

Hej
Sweden and its railways are the topic, not those of England and Holland.
As a matter of fact we are wery happy with (the ) Banverket as rail prowider in the same manner as (the) Vägverket are providing roads for cars and lorrys.
They are also providing the trafic control and manages the train paths.
As a general rule trains who are on time have priority over those who are not, i e a late passenger train have to wait for a freight who is on time.
Generaly train operators help each others when in trouble. I do not know in detail but there is an agrement with details on how much different services cost.
Also, when for instance (the)Banverket has not cleared snow and delayed a train there is a refund of track charges.

Thanks guys for the information . I have started a seperate topic for discussion of public / private , seperate /intergrated providers . Please continue discussion of this topic there , and keep this one for discussion of Swedish Railways .
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17399

thanks ,
David .