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TRANSPORT

Rail operator refused to stop for disabled boy

14-year-old wheelchair-bound Viktor Magnusson wanted to take the train from Sundsvall to Uppsala to visit his sister, but he was told by rail operator SJ staff that he could not get off the train as it "would take too long".

“They said ‘we can’t fuss about like this at every station’. But there is only one space for a wheelchair on every train,” said Viktor’s mother, Ann-Louise Magnusson, to the Svenska Dagbladet daily.

Ann-Louise Magnusson told the newspaper that her son would have been forced to stay on the train to Stockholm and then take a train back to Uppsala at his own expense. As the extended journey would have left him only two and half hours in Uppsala they decided against the trip.

The Magnussons have now reported SJ to the discrimination ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsman – DO).

Dag Rosander at SJ told The Local on Friday that the firm is in the process of changing its wheelchair lifts on X2000 trains, work which will be completed in the beginning of 2011.

“We now have a system of manual lifts and what we have said in the time being is that these are available at start and end destinations. It is our policy to then pay for a taxi back to the stations en route.”

Rosander said that the matter is now under investigation.

“The family called our customer service and should have been informed about this. We are going to contact the mother and get to the bottom of this,” he said.

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TRANSPORT

Copenhagen Metro lines reopen after two-week closure

Lines M3 and M4 of the Copenhagen Metro are back in service having reopened on Sunday, one day ahead of schedule.

Copenhagen Metro lines reopen after two-week closure

The two lines had been closed so that the Metro can run test operations before opening five new stations on the M4 line this summer.

The tests, which began on February 10th, are now done and the lines were running again as of Sunday evening, a day ahead of the original planned reopening on Monday February 26th.

“We are very pleased to be able to welcome our passengers on to our two lines M3 and M4,” head of operations with the Metro Søren Boysen said.

“The whole test procedure exceeded all expectations and went faster than expected and we can therefore get a head start on our reopening now,” he said.

Time set aside for potential repeat tests was not needed in the event, allowing the test closures to be completed ahead of time.

“Several of our many tests went better than expected and we have therefore not used all the time we needed for extra tests,” Boysen said.

The two lines serve around one million passengers every week, according to the Metro company.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen city government greenlights extension to Metro line

The new stops on the M4 line will be located south of central Copenhagen in the Valby and Sydhavn areas. The will have the names Haveholmen, Enghave Brygge, Sluseholmen, Mozarts Plads and København Syd (Copenhagen South).

The M3 and M4 lines, the newer sections of the Metro, opened in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

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