Despite government investments in the railways over the past 20 years, Sweden’s trains have difficulty keeping up with time, states Pierre Sandberg, union director at Almega Tågföretagen, and Linus Eriksson, CEO of Øresundsbro Konsortiet, in a debate article in Swedish daily newspaper.
“The challenge of the Swedish railways is that we run mixed traffic. This means that the slowest train becomes dimensioning,” they write.
“A timetable where on the same track you mix everything from fast X2000s that run at 200 kilometers per hour with regional trains, local trains and freight trains that run at 70-90 kilometers per hour becomes very sensitive to disturbances.”
The development of railways with four tracks can, on the other hand, contribute to better capacity and more punctual railway traffic. This is by avoiding that errors that occur on the railways prevent the trains, according to the debaters.
“More tracks open up more traffic, but above all it makes the railway more robust. A train with a vehicle fault, or a broken switch, will then not completely knock out the traffic as it often does today,” they write.