I would assume that the size of the country does not favour rail, esp in the north while in urban areas there is potential.
Hello from Umeå, Sweden, at 63° 49'N (sunrise 08:51 and sunset 14:03 today
).
(This isn't even close to the northernmost point in the country... we're about 600km north of Stockholm but probably still 700km south of the northernmost point).
Sweden is indeed big. It's third-largest EU country by area (after France and Spain) but with a population of around 10 million. Most of the population is in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö or within the triangle that the three cities form. So that's where Swedish railways face their most pressing capacity constraints. The Stockholm-Malmö-Copenhagen corridor is perhaps the most important, especially given the growth in international rail travel via Denmark to Germany and beyond. There are various infrastructure and rolling stock projects underway to run more services or fit more passengers. (SJ's fleet of nineteen-eighties' X2000 trains will be refurbished soon, returning to service with more seats; and there are more trains on order). Housing is crazy expensive in Stockholm, so there is good potential to grow the effectiveness of commuter traffic in and out of the capital.
Meanwhile, here in the north, the existing infrastructure is used quite intensively. Most of it is electrified, but most of it is single-track, so fitting passenger and freight together is a challenge.
Norrtåg (currently operated by Tågkompaniet, aka VY Tåg) operates local and regional passenger services in the northernmost four counties. Norrtåg set the timetables, fares, etc, and Tågkompaniet operate the trains, so it's not directly comparable to the UK franchise system. I looked at living outside Umeå, but strangely found the Norrtåg's timetables aren't so well suited to commuting in and out of the city, especially anywhere on the line to Lycksele. Their network seems to have some commuter flows in and out of the towns along the coast, but they are a kind of hybrid between a 'local' and 'interregional' network. There are some busy corridors with growing commuter traffic (Vännäs - Umeå, or Boden - Luleå) as well as longer distance four to five-hour regional services.
SJ receive a subsidy for their high-speed daytime trains between Stockholm and Umeå, as well as two daily night trains between Stockholm - Åre, Stockholm - Luleå, Stockholm - Narvik (although I'm not sure if there is any subsidy - Norwegian or otherwise - for the last portion of the trip into Norway). As I understand it, night trains south of Stockholm (Gothenburg - Åre / Luleå, and Stockholm - Malmö) are not subsidised. There's also at least one SJ daytime intercity train pair between Luleå and Narvik which I presume is also subsidised.
(
Here's a map if this getting confusing).
To return to your comment, that the size of the country does not favour rail - there have been significant infrastructure upgrades like the
Botniabanan which have dramatically shortened daytime journey times. Umeå now has four trains a day to Stockholm taking around six hours. This could be reduced further if the full capacity of ERTMS was exploited, or double-track sections were extended. On a typical weekday, there are 10-15 roundtrips on three airlines between Umeå Airport and Stockholm Arlanda and Bromma airports. But Swedavia has reported month-on-month and year-on-year falls in domestic passenger traffic to/from Umeå, just as the daytime service expands. Preparatory works for the
Norrbotniabanan (Umeå - Skellefteå - Luleå - Haparanda (SE) / Tornio (FI) are also under-way. Completing the coastal high-speed railway all the way to the Finnish border will also release valuable capacity on the Upper Norrland Main Line for more freight.
My hope is that the
flygskam movement will help influence the next generation of night trains in Sweden. These have the best chance of eating away at the busy domestic north-south air routes. The Swedish government has put up some funding to identify or acquire rolling stock for new international night trains from Stockholm into continental Europe. ÖBB recently put out a tender for night trains that would be operable in Sweden. And sometime soon, a plan needs to be made to replace the older rolling stock that SJ uses on its night trains.