SJ Stockholm sleeper - booking?

[Julia]

I wanted to take the sleeper Hamburg - Stockholm in July, and the superbly helpful Man In Seat 61 points me to book via SJ's website. However, all connections in June onwards, both daytime and sleeper, come up as "not available". There are some sleeper prices shown in April, but daytime again comes up "not available". Am I trying to book too early, or is there some reason they're not running, like major infrastructure works hitting this summer? I don't think they are sold out as I did see one service a few days in the future that explicitly said "sold out" next to it...

 

[rvdborgt]

You're too early. SJ will make bookings possible by the latest in the middle of the preceding month, often earlier.
There's no other way than to try regularly.
Indeed, trains that are sold out will explicitly say so.

 

[stuu]

I'm hoping to book this in the Summer too, SJ have an FAQ section on their website which states that the night train is bookable until the 2nd June, and they will update that as soon as they know. The first time I checked that page was in January and it said booking were available to the beginning of April... it changed to saying June at the beginning of March so I would assume they won't release the tickets beyond June until the end of April at the earliest.

 

[jamesontheroad]

If you load the English language version of SJ and search for a journey that's not available, there are a couple of different possibilities for why it's unavailable. The message (in English) varies.

Sold out - the train is running but there are no available seats/berths.
Not available / planning in progress - SJ has not received confirmed schedules from Trafikverket. The train might or might not be operating. Come back later.
Not available - could be track work planning, could be something else. Come back later.

 

[doc7austin]

Also due to ongoing rolling stock issues, SJ is restricting available capacity.
That means a train could be marked as "sold out" a couple of weeks before its running, where a couple of days before departure capacity quota is added in the booking system. This is esp. true for the sleeping car.

I wanted to take the sleeper Hamburg - Stockholm in July,

Try again at the beginning of June. You should shoot for free capacity in the Couchette car.

 

[jstg]

This is the page to check, https://www.sj.se/en/customer-servi...ions/5170/when-does-sj-release-their-tickets/

It now says summer trips will be available at the end of April.

 

[stuu]

Tickets for the sleeper are now available until mid August