By withdrawing from Gothenburg, SJ is gambling on further subsidies – at the expense of the passengers.
On 2024-08-19 Swedish night train operator SJ announced to cancel all night train connections to and from Gothenburg. The route to Umeå will be the first to be closed in December, the night train from Gothenburg to Åre and Duved will run a last time in April 2025. Sweden’s second-largest city will thus be cut off from night train services. A shock – not only for the Västra Götaland region but also for tourism in northern Sweden.
Background:
In Sweden things have recently been going haywire for night train operations. In 2020, Norwegian VY entered the Swedish railway market and took over the public service obligation (PSO) for the prestigious night trains from Stockholm to Luleå and Narvik/Áhkanjárga. The Norwegian operator faced a bumpy start and frequent problems with derailments, however, the situation seemed to have stabilised. Yet in the spring, it was announced that the Norwegians were pulling out and would not use the usual contract extension option for the operation. So the Swedish transport authority prepared an emergency contract award for the next two years. In July, it was then announced that the Swedish state railway SJ would step in and operate the trains from December 2024.
Closing down the night train lines to Gothenburg seems to be a direct consequence of these events. SJ spokeswoman Lina Edström confirmed on Swedish Radio this is not due to a lack of demand. “Everyone travelling with this train knows that it is often fully booked.” Confirmed by SJ business director Jan Kyrk at jarnvagar.nu the problem is “unsuffcient profit”. In contrast to other routes, SJ operates the night trains from Gothenburg on its own account, (open access, i.e. without state subsidies). It is therefore more lucrative for the railway to withdraw coaches and staff from Gothenburg and use them on subsidised routes.
As Train Blogger Sebastian Wilken commented: “The whole thing is a textbook example of what happens when you rob a railway of its actual purpose – to meet people’s mobility needs – and instead subordinate it to a goal that is secondary from the passenger’s point of view: maximising profit.”
To resume services SJ demands from the state to subsidize the Gothenburg leg just like the Stockholm leg. Conservative MPs like Edward Riedl (Moderaterna) already commented they are not sure whether fixing this problem should not better be left to the market. They might overlook an important detail: As SJ operates the subsidised route form Stockholm to both Umeå and Duved / Åre the extension of this Y shaped route to an X shaped route connecting both Stockholm and Göteborg at the southern end can be produced at marginal cost, but only for the contractor of the subsidized route. So it will be very difficult for competitors to fill the gap. This problem must be fixed politically.
And it must be fixed as soon as possible. For up to 800 daily passengers the alternative to travel an extra 2 hours, paying significantly more and to change at Stockholm just before midnight (northbound) or between 5 and 6 a.m. (southbound) is none. Most passengers would rather take the plane and the others will find it hard to find tickets, because Stockholm to Umeå and Duved night trains run as one between Sundsvall and Stockholm and thus cannot be extended.
Sign the petition!
There is a petition against the cancellation, which has already collected over 20,000 signatures in just one day. A few years ago, the Gothenburg night trains were already on the brink of cancellation and were saved at the last minute. Please support our fellow night train users in Sweden, even if you did not (yet) use this night train. Your may use our English petition form below or the original Swedish language form (you may auto-translate the with the help of your browser).
To the Swedish Minister for Infrastructure and Housing Andreas Carlson:
Save the night trains to Göteborg!
Photo: Night train in Umeå C, CC-BY Axel Pettersson