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Train services suffer three hour delays

The situation for train traffic heading through the counties Östergötland and Södermanland, in south-eastern Sweden, continues to look grim on Sunday.

Train services suffer three hour delays

Passengers hoping to travel between Stockholm and southern Sweden can count on three-hour delays, according to national rail service SJ.

All trains are currently being re-directed through Västergötland, since heavy rains wiped out the equipment shelter in Östergötland that directs the traffic and information about trains.

According to a forecast set by the National Transport Administration (Trafikverket), traffic won’t be running normally until Monday evening.

Passengers are asked to keep informed via train companies’ websites.

“There will be hefty delays, and therefore it’s very good to come in good time, if you’ve got a set time to be somewhere,” said Thomas Pihl, press officer at the Transport Administration, to news agency TT.

The equipment shelter, which was swimming in water after the rains flooded it, has now been emptied, and the work to repare all water-logged electronics is ongoing.

At the national rail service, there is some relief that the dramatic weather struck at a time when there are relatively few travellers.

“People are on vacation, and it’s a weekend. This isn’t something one hopes for, but if it has to happen, this is the right time of year for it,” said Mårten Dunér, press officer at SJ, to TT.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The booking site of Sweden's state-owned rail company SJ crashed on Tuesday evening after the company released long-awaited tickets for the Christmas period.

Swedish rail company SJs site crashes on Christmas tickets release

The company on Tuesday night released tickets for the period from December 11th to March 12th next year, only to see the site crash under the volume of booking requests. 

“There are enormous amounts of customers who want to buy tickets, even though it’s the middle of the night,” Lina Edström, a press officer for the company said shortly after midnight. “The home page quite simply can’t cope with responding to so many requests at the same time. 

The site started to work again a few hours later, only to crash once again as people woke up and started booking on Wednesday morning. 

“The reports we are getting is that it’s working for some people and not for others. That’s what we’re seeing as Sweden wakes up and more and more people try and get onto the site,” said Jonas Olsson, another press officer at 7.30am. 

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The release of Christmas tickets in Sweden has been severely delayed because of late publication of the Swedish Transport Administration train plan for 2023, which coordinates the times for all passenger and goods trains in Sweden. 

The train plan should have been published at the start of August, giving companies 18 weeks to set tickets from December 10th. It was only released on October 19th. The administration said that it has had problems due to change over to a digital system. 

Many customers have been complaining that they have seen prices for Christmas trips double in the time it has taken them to book a ticket. 

Olsson told the TT newswire that SJ’s pricing system is based on the level of demand. 

“I understand the frustration, and we may well look at this going forward,” he said. “But even if many people have ended up in this situation, there are many others who have been able to buy cheaper tickets.” 

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