Baldie
Traveller
15 comments
Posted 2 months ago
Although I can't book for my trip on this line yet, I have kept looking at the booking situation. It seems strange that the departure every day is "sold out" until May then for a few days it "no trains" then "purchase not available". This is the same on both vy.se and sj.se websites. Is there any reason why this train is so heavily booked and is it likely to be so throughout the year? Is there any way I can reserve a booking before the ticket comes on sale?
Arend7
Traveller
592 comments
Mejl
servicecenter@vy.se
Telefon
0771-444 111
MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments
since the date of travel has been witheld it makes answering the question difficult.......
Arend7
Traveller
592 comments
Mentioning a date here has no sense, because the booking program at all at vy.se looks out of order.
MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments
there is a reason for knowing the date https://www.vy.se/en/news/released-tickets-until-june-4th although if you read carefully it didn't promise every date in that period. Basically "the Swedish Transport Administration's track maintenance plan" is a disaster, I've seen pages on the Sj.se site which simply give up and tell you to check with them direct! And if we could match dates with messages we might find out what is going with these trains. My thoughts are that there is a wait list being held manually until trains are opened and the websites are a waste of time. Or, hardly any trains ever run all the way (which is unlikely but can't be excluded)
Baldie
Traveller
15 comments
Thanks for your replies so far. I have emailed VY Sweden so will let you know their reply, when I have one.
MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments
hidden in the sj website https://www.sj.se/en/traffic-information this doesn't sell tickets it just check what is actually running (or not). On this route it won't confirm schedules more than 14 days in advance. Try this week and it says no train to Narvik - when in fact it doesn't seem to know what happens beyond the border at Riksgränsen. Try asking for Riksgränsen. It will find trains within the 14 days, but if you look at the details some are replaced by buses beyond Abisko but the buses don't seem to be added prompty. I would suggest that you first check the actual travel date with this page, if it shows anything to Riksgränsen it's probably going to Narvik but if it's a replacement bus the booking website might not know about it. And by the time the mess is sorted out the reservations have gone to those on the wait list. The vy.no webiste hasnlt got a clue what happens on their side of the border, and entur.no only knows about the rare local trains.
nltrainer
Traveller
1342 comments
On another sitean enthusiast ´married with trains´ thing in quite another lingo I read that there is-its of course single track and mostly used for very long&heavy iron ore trains-a big disturbance in a quite unaccessible place (not easy to reach via roads for maintenance trcuks etc) and as its a hardly populated and very remote area, it will take much, much more time as other places for a repair. Rails defunct=train cannot run.
Such jobs with unattractive variable times to work in SE also have serious staff shortage, so anything tht a real working person has to put in online will suffer from that. Just one of the dozens of probs trains tend to have that those ´anyone has to go on rails´ lobby persons never ever mention
Baldie
Traveller
15 comments
As VY Sweden hasn't responded to my email yet, and reading nltrainer's post above, Mr. Goggle pointed me to an article in High North News. The derailment of an fully loaded iron ore train in mid December caused extensive damage to a 15 kilometre stretch of track near the Norway/Sweden border. So, it seems that the line will be out of action for quite a while. I can only think why the VY website says sold out is maybe buses are replacing the trains with reduced capacity. thanks everyone, for your responses to my initial query.
MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments
It's actually got worse! On 20th February the line reopened for the important iron ore trains but not passengers, the trains were to run slower. On the 23rd the Swedish infrastructure agency gavea press conference in which they basically said that the ore was more important than tourists and since the line wasn't fully repaired and working to capacity the tourists would have to wait until summer. On the evening of the 24th an empty ore train returning to Sweden had another derailment wrecking more infrastructure in an area where the snow is about 2 metres deep and difficult to work in. I wouldn't make plans for this route........
Baldie
Traveller
15 comments
Looks like I will have to keep my fingers crossed until I hope to travel this line in October! Should be plenty of time shouldn't it? But at least the trains seem to be running from Kiruna to Lulea, so if the worst comes to the worst I'll have to find out how to get from Narvik to Kiruna. Hopefully a bus, as my age stops me hiring a car.,
Pamelagin
Traveller
1 comments
Hello! Do you understand that there are also changes for the train 94 that goes from Stockholm to Abisko? We always talk about derailment in Narvik but it would seem that there are problems with that on the previous route. If you know something more, such as how it will be handled, please update me?
MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments
that will be connected to the bigger problem, allI suggest is that you use the link provided earlier to try to find out what is running (which is not always the same as what the reservation system thinks is running!) https://www.sj.se/en/traffic-information