During week 24, which starts today, 35 miles of the railway will be closed for maintenance work on the Södra main line. Contact lines, switches and tracks must be replaced, which means stopping parts of the track. The section between Stockholm and Malmö is affected, as is the section between Norrköping and Hässleholm. It is possible to travel between these stations, but the trains run on the Västra instead of the Södra main line.
No tickets have been sold for the affected routes, so customers will not have their journey cancelled, according to what Jonas Olsson at SJ’s press service previously told TT. However, a journey that normally takes just over four hours can take closer to seven hours.
For routes that SJ does not operate during this week, replacement buses are deployed by other operators.
The Swedish Transport Administration has been planning the extensive work for a year and a half.
The reason it is being carried out right now is a pent-up need to equip the railway. In a short time, they want to carry out as much work as possible to avoid unplanned disturbances in the future, according to Jenny Nilsson, project manager at the Swedish Transport Administration.