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After 34-year pause, train service between Sweden and Finland resumes
🇸🇪 Sweden /Technology

After 34-year pause, train service between Sweden and Finland resumes

From Dagens Nyheter · () Swedish

Translated from Swedish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Sources not specified New plan
  • A new train service will launch on August 10, connecting Haparanda, Sweden, with Oulu, Finland, marking the first direct rail link between the countries since 1992.
  • The journey between Haparanda and Oulu will take approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, with tickets initially available only through the Finnish state railway company VR's online store.
  • The initiative, supported by the Finnish state and municipalities, aims to eventually allow for single ticket purchases from major cities like Stockholm to Helsinki, though this requires further IT and commercial agreements.

After a 34-year hiatus, train travel between Sweden and Finland is set to resume on August 10. The inaugural service will connect Haparanda in Sweden with the university city of Oulu in Finland, a route that has been dormant since 1992.

We are working on it. Hopefully, it will be resolved by the start of traffic.

— Joakim BergV.D. for Norrtåg, discussing the availability of tickets through Norrtåg's system.

The initial journey from Haparanda to Oulu is scheduled to take one hour and 40 minutes. Tickets for this new service will be available for purchase through the Finnish state railway company VR's online store, though Norrtåg, the Swedish operator for the Haparanda section, is working to resolve ticketing issues before the launch.

While currently requiring separate bookings for each country's rail network, there is a long-term ambition to offer a single ticket for journeys spanning from Stockholm to Helsinki. This would necessitate significant IT coordination and commercial agreements between the rail operators.

We are striving for that but I cannot promise anything, as it requires both IT coordination and commercial agreements on ticket sales.

— Juho HannukainenVR's director of new traffic, on the possibility of a single ticket for longer journeys.

The revival of this cross-border rail link has been made possible by Finland's electrification of a section of its railway network. The Finnish state and several municipalities are providing annual support of 21 million kronor (1.9 million euros) to sustain this new connection. Further improvements to train schedules for onward connections within both Sweden and Finland are planned for December.

I don't have a direct answer to that, because we use dynamic pricing in long-distance traffic. It depends on which train journey you take and how high the demand is, as well as how many have already bought tickets.

— Juho HannukainenVR's director of new traffic, explaining the pricing for the Haparanda-Oulu route.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Dagens Nyheter in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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