A delay in the morning resulted in me dropping plans to go to Bromma. However, this simplified my options especially after speaking to the woman in the Tourist office at Arlanda. The only slight complication (which didn't cost any more time) was that you can only buy tickets in the Pressbyran at the Arrivals level - not Departures. Anyway, by catching the 583 bus to Marsta, I could connect with the commuter train and full coverage of the city came to 125Kr without complicated preloading and/or making connections within 75 minutes. I duly did this, with the inbound connection being adequate, and I reached St. Eriksplan 55 minutes after boarding the bus outside T5. I was able to catch the 67 right outside the station, albeit I just missed one. Nevertheless, a biogas bendibus took barely 20 minutes to my initial destination. The return was on the tram,which took 10 minutes to Hamngatan, where a walk of similar duration at the height of the evening rush hour involved the familiar weaving through pavement works (tram extension?) and commuters (including cyclists). There was a slight moment of panic when I descended into the cavernous Central Station, as all the commuter train line numbers were in the 20s & 30s, but the Marsta line was 41/42! Fortunately, I quickly espied an SL employee who was exceedingly helpful, explaining that the line numbers had changed and handed me a new map (tbf, this looked like the one on the website) and even directed me on the long walk to find the correct platform. All achieved successfully, but again I just missed a train. The next train duly arrived on time and made steady progress out of the city. However, we then stopped briefly between stations a couple of times, which culminated in a late arrival back at Marsta. As I left the Station (with many others of course), I just identified the stop for the 583 and surprise, surprise, it set off. Resigned to waiting another 15 minutes or more - good job I'd had an excellent lunch! - the driver did no more than do a full circle back to the stop and along with maybe a dozen others, I joined the few already on board. This, of course, was an interesting little tale given the general concept of integration. Are bus drivers told to bend the timetable to await late running trains, or did he do it "off his own back". Given, the general helpful attitude of virtually everyone I encountered in Stockholm, I suspect it was the latter. Would that work in Britain. More to the point could *every* bus driver (or indeed Light Rail driver) buy into it?
For the record - given radamfi's curt comment; itself a telling attitude given he (or she) is the one banging the drum for Integration loudest on this forum - all three buses I used were comfortable. In fact, the 583 I caught back to Arlanda seemed almost sumptuous (maybe I picked a good seat), despite a bell push hanging from a stanchion and minor bodywork damage. It was also the same batch as the outward 583. The trains actually differed slightly. The inbound (6005 if there are any international rail enthusiasts reading this) was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable by the time I approached the city, but the return (6101) was better. As expected, the tram wasn't at all comfortable, but possibly slightly better than Metrolink's "yellow perils".
