Will wrote: ↑26 Jan 2024, 1:18pm
CJ wrote: ↑13 Dec 2023, 7:01pm
Slightly off-topic, because we're not taking bikes, but in March my wife and I are making a bit of a sleeper-train saga, involving not one but two nights on the rails, in the hope of viewing the Aurora in Abisko at the northern tip of Sweden and perhaps also at Narvik in Norway.
First we'll tickatty-tock down to 'that London' for a weekend with our son's family, before boarding the first Eurostar of the day to Brussel Zuid. Here we connect with 'Die Bahn' and a chain of ICEs via Köln (and perhaps also Hannover) to Hamburg for dinner and the Swedish EuroNight train to Stockholm. After a day in the City of Islands we take another 'Nattåg' operated by Norwegian Vy trains to the far north. I expect we'll awake more or less as our train leaves the frozen Baltic coast for the more deeply frozen interior and disembark late morning at
Abisko on the Scandinavian watershed. Three days later we continue on the 'Arctic Train' to Narvik, following the route of the
Ofoten Line, built in 1902 to haul rich reserves of Kiruna iron all-year-round to an ice-free Atlantic port. As I said, we're not taking bikes, but I'll poke around the carriages and ask a few questions about that while I'm there.
Unfortunately I couldn't persuade Helen to spend another four days and two nights on trains to get home, so we're flying back to Manchester in 1/4 of the time for 1/3 the money - but 1/10th of the fun and no adventure at all!
I believe Vy acquired some of the combined Couchette and bike carriages (with 20 bike spaces) that used to be used for DB City Night Line services. They have removed
some of the bike hangers and replaced them with luggage racks and space for skis.
Will
Well: we're back and I'm able to report that on walking the length of both sleeper trains, I didn't find any bike storage space, as such, on either of them. I didn't explore Eurostar or the two German ICE trains we travelled in to Hamburg, asuming we know enough about those already.
The SJ train from Hamburg to Stockholm was particulary cramped. It was even hard to find space for two average suitcases in the three berth compartment shared by my wife and I - with NO third person. My case entirely filled the narrow gap between bunk and wall, so one had to step over it to get out. Panniers would at least slide under the bottom bunk, but what to do with a bike? Maybe, if one came equipped with hooks and ropes, it might be possible to suspend a bike from the high level luggage racks and then creep about underneath it, but two bikes? And I can't see how one would then access the upper bunk.
None of the Vy rolling stock gave any indication of ever having space for bikes, unless you count the ski cupboards at each end (or was it only one end?) of each couchette carriage. I asked a member of staff if summer travellers put bicycles in those, but they didn't think so, pointing out that there was no provision to hang by the front wheel, which is the only way to fit one or two bikes - maybe three at a pinch - in there. Again, I think you could do something with rope, or the ubiquitous for-everything-but... toestraps. The sleeping compartments were slightly more generous (or maybe had narrower beds). Whatever, I could squeeze between the bunk and my suitcase.
As for the journeys, I'd say they were interesting. Six days before the off I got the following text from SJ:
Hi! Your EuroNight train 346 2024-03-04 (JMZ5338J) has a new departure station; Hamburg Bergedorf station, due to track maintenance. The train will stop in Hamburg Hbf. Departure time for train 346 from Hamburg Bergedorf is 21:34. To get to Hamburg Bergedorf we refer you to S-Bahn from Hamburg Hbf.
This was followed by two more texts, first about how our sleeper car number had changed - no problem - and second about how the train
has a new carriage constellation without your sleeping car. We have reserved you a new couchette compartment 91-96 in carriage 22. Toilet is available in the end of your carriage. You will automatically be compensated 25% of the ticket price.
As the only toilet facilities in our booked second-class sleeper was a washbasin, WC being likewise down the corridor, the only thing concerning us about this change was the prospect of sharing with four others and as Helen had by then developed a bad cough, whether any of us would sleep!
Fortunately we had three or four hours in Hamburg, so I worked out where Bergedorf was and that we could easily get there on the S-bahn. But as the dining and time-killing opportunities looked much better around the Hauptbahnhof and as the train was supposed to be calling there anyway... I wasn't planning to schlep ourselves out to the bare and probably windswept platforms of Bergedorf. So we dined at a pub called
Nagel (which I recommend, plus their own-brewed dark lager), as slowly as we reasonably could, then wandered back to the Hbf, where the information office was now less busy, so we thought it would be a good idea to make double sure that EN346 would be picking up there and exactly when. Fortunately (after saying yes of course it does) our informer checked for changes in the day's running order (or whatever it should be called) and could not find our train at all - except at Bergedorf. So off we went on the S-bahn, in 20 minutes leaving still another hour to wait, on a platform that
was swept by a damp wind that chilled to the bone. Helen's cough was getting worse so we retreated to a kebab shop for coffee, returning to find a lot more people on the platform including some cheerful SJ train staff who checked a list and assured us that the last text was rubbish and we would get identical accommodation to that we'd booked. And so we did - but nevertheless received a 25% compensation payment from SJ! As for stopping at the Hbf to pick up... we shunted to and fro around Hamburg for at least an hour without stopping at any other Bahnhof as far as I could tell - never mind a Hauptbahnhof, so we were very glad we went to Bergedorf!
We were also glad to have a sightseeing day between trains, or what remains of a day after rolling in at nearer twelve than ten! Because Helen's cough was now worse, so the main sight we saw was the inside of a clinic where they very thoroughly, professionally and slowly diagnosed pneumonia, before prescribing the antibiotics she so obviously needed. There was just time for a very belated lunch-cum-dinner before boarding Vy Nattåg 94 at 18:08 for Abisko. Except it wasn't going all the way to Abisko. The inconvenient alteration to
this service involved checking out of our sleeping accommodation at 05:30 and changing to an ordinary train with seats (and a sadly diminshed meals service) for the final six hours. Fortunately I'd guessed that the sleeper bistro's interesting choice of arctic-inspired meals might not be replicated on the other train and already stocked up with reindeer and moose salami snacks, plus porridge with lingen-berry sauce - that only needed hot water to serve.
The reason our sleeper didn't go all the way is that in December an iron-ore train derailed and tore up several hundred metres of track, somewhere between Abisko and Narvik. Throughout Jan and Feb Vy's website promised to reopen the line soon, but when it did re-open it was only to goods trains, passenger service being considered too risky on mended track that cannot be properly inspected when everything's covered in snow. Good decision: another ore train derailed (less destructively) a couple of weeks after re-opening. Sleeper carriages can't be turned around without a good deal of cleaning and provisioning, services that are available only at major stations, so with Narvik inaccessible, from Boden our empty carriages were sent to Lulea.
When the line closed in December, Vy immediately stopped selling tickets on that route and ran replacement buses for those who'd already got tickets, between Narvik and Bjorklijden - the next station beyond Abisko and as far as passenger trains could go. So we got to our base for the first three nights okay, but as I hadn't bought tickets already before the 17th December, we had no obvious way of reaching Narvik and our flight home. For this is wild and empty country with no public transport apart from the railway (that takes a completely different route than the road) on the Norwegian side of the border. An infrequent bus to a ski resort near the border, then a very expensive taxi to Narvik looked like our least bad option, until Helen found on Facebook a guy in Abisko who drives day trips to "The Norwegian Fjords" and was happy to take us one way for some cash in hand. More cash than the train fare, and I doubt we will ever see that most scenic section of the Arctic Circle Railway, but our broken transport chain was mended.
Apparently Vy are now selling tickets for their replacement bus service. So it's taken them three months to get their act together, but public transport between Kiruna and Narvik is restored.
The flight home wasn't exactly what I'd planned either. To have time for breakfast then catch a bus for the long drive to Narvik airport (which is at Evenes on the opposite side of the fjord, some 80km around by road) I'd booked an afternoon flight, with a sensible 3 hour connection in Oslo to arrive in Manchester that evening. But then SAS bumped us onto the morning flight, so we had to get up awfully early and miss breakfast to catch a bus at 6am (they're very infrequent) then spend a boringly long 6 hours in Oslo airport before our Manchester flight. Fortunately, when I explained this to the woman controlling entry to the SAS Lounge at Oslo, she surreptitiously let us in, so most of those hours were spent very comfortably with free food and drink.
