Scandinavia is not really where you want to go in Europe for good intercity trains (its commuter rail is another story). The connection between Sweden and Norway is especially notorious for being ancient and slow, with plans to upgrade it being discussed for many years. The modern lines are the Great Belt route east-to-west across Denmark, and the triangle in southern Sweden connecting Malmö, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. And even those are not up to French, Spanish, or German standards.
Sweden-Norway is getting improved, the railroad between åre-trondheim has been 2 separate trains due to the Norwegian train not being electrified. Which is now being worked on. Trains in the northern parts of Sweden will always be sparse due to the low population tho.
Flying from Stockholm to Copenhagen (or even Malmö or Gothenburg) is often a better alternative to trains. Thankfully there's now an express train to Gothenburg, but that's about it.
Gothenburg to Stockholm is longer and takes 3 hours by train, and that is with a train from 1990. That is of course the prime route in Sweden, but it still isn't fast.
I wonder how they planned to route from Stockholm to Helsinki. Going around the gulf is a damn long sidetrack (1700 kilometers).
I feel rather disconnected from central Europe since the only practical way to get there involves flight or ship or a detour via St. Petersburg. On that front, this seems like an interesting project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki%E2%80%93Tallinn_Tunne...
I don't want to travel fast and slow from Stockholm to, say, Copenhagen, or to Hamburg when I visit friends or family. I want to get to the destination, fast.
I live in the north (Norrbotten) in a smaller community. There is a point to take the train between Gothenburg and Stockholm instead of flying for example, but taking the train from Luleå to the south is simply not worth it. It's just as expensive (sometimes more so) and the trip will take at least 15h longer...
That one was interesting, but seems to be missing some data about regional trains in Sweden. Even though commuter trains around Stockholm seem reasonably correct.
I did a 24 hour rail trip from Narvik, Norway to Gothenburg, Sweden. We changed trains in Boden, Sweden. It was ... long. The first few hours, over the mountains, was fantastic. Once we passed Kiruna it was forest. Lots and lots of forest. This was in summer, and there was overcast light almost the entire time. There was no feeling of progress during the journey.
That is a bad excuse, USA is denser than Sweden yet Sweden still has enough trains that you don't have to take cars between basically all cities with more than 10k inhabitants, even those in the mostly depopulated Swedish north.
Yeah I probably have some confirmation bias having travelled mainly inside the Stockholm/Sörmland region and from Stockholm to Gothenburg. I was very surprised to see that Edinburgh to Glasgow is not electrified for example.
There’s a coach from Oslo to Malmö. Not sure if it goes on to Copenhagen, but it’s easy enough to walk to the train platform and be at Copenhagen in 40mins.
The Oresund Bridge is really rather marvellous, it adorns the coastline from every beach in Malmo and it's generally a pleasure to use (when the wind isn't so strong that the trains are cancelled.)
It is rather expensive to go via car (50eur) but the trains are reasonably priced (10eur), and it's extremely common for people in (even in my company) to commute from Denmark to Sweden.
I can't imagine how many people from Sweden go to Denmark each day as the wages are higher.
I don't think it would be nearly as nice to live here without the bridge, since you can be in CPH Central from my apartment in under 40 minutes, and to the airport in roughly half of that.
It doesn't just connect the two nations, it connects this region of Sweden to the rest of the world too.
I'd be surprised if you could commute 100km in one hour on ordinary rural roads. I have a colleague who commutes from Åmot to Drammen and he takes about an hour and its only about 60km and that's pretty good roads most of the way. I know Swedish roads are often better than Norwegian ones but are they really that much better? Or do Swedes just drive a lot faster?
If you like the combination of scandinavia and infrastructure: norway is currently also working on an amazing project to connect their costal region via a new coastal highway featuring some stunning tunnel and bridge proposals:
Yeah, but Sweden is small. In the US, people routinely drive distances where you would be flying or using the train. The mountains make things a bit different, but I think in general it's true.
Some maps: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sweden_railways.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Danmark_maks._hastig...
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