Snälltåget is an open access railway company in Sweden with long-distance trains along the

Southern Main Line The Southern Main Line ( sv, Södra stambanan) is a long standard gauge electrified railway between Malmö and Katrineholm in Sweden. The trains continue further on to Stockholm Central Station along the Western Main Line and terminate there (a ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

from

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

as well as sleeper trains between Stockholm and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and Malmö to the ski and hiking resorts in

Jämtland Jämtland (; no, Jemtland or , ; Jamtish: ''Jamtlann''; la, Iemptia) is a historical province () in the centre of Sweden in northern Europe. It borders Härjedalen and Medelpad to the south, Ångermanland to the east, Lapland to the north a ...

county.

History

Snälltåget was set up in 2006 (first departure January 31 2007) as Veolia Transport after partial deregulation of the Swedish rail network running ad hoc services. Regular weekend services began in 2009 (expanding to weekdays in 2010), after the network was fully deregulated, running in direct competition with the state-owned operator SJ. The summer night train extension to Berlin was launched in 2012 with the network rebranding as Snälltåget in 2013. From September 2016, a brand new fleet of Class 193 ''Vectron'' locomotives were added to replace the hired commonly used

Hector Rail Hector Rail is a Swedish-based independent train haulage provider operating in the European rail transport market, operating 50 locomotives. The company provides locomotives and drivers to freight customers who need to have whole unit trains haule ...

Class 242 ''Taurus'' and the Class 241 ''Traxx''. Together with coaches from Germany, they started operation at 200 km/h, the first time for locomotives and railcars in Sweden. Until 2019 it operated with train ferry via

Trelleborg Trelleborg () is a town in Skåne County, Sweden, with 43,359 inhabitants as of December 31, 2015. It is the southernmost town in Sweden located some west from the southernmost point of Sweden and the Scandinavian peninsula. It is one of the mo ...

to Sassnitz. In 2020, this train and the ferry route was cancelled because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. From June 2021 a modified night train over the Great Belt Fixed Link without ferry was launched, between Stockholm,

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and Berlin. In November 2021, Snälltåget's parent company Transdev expressed its intention to sell the company. In January 2022, a new overnight service from Malmö to

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

via Zell am See and other ski resorts in the Austrian Central Eastern Alps along the Salzburg-Tyrol Railway commenced.

Routes

Snälltåget operates four different routes: The main route is operated from

via

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

, Hässleholm, Alvesta, Nässjö, Linköping and

Norrköping Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Linköp ...

throughout the year. In hiking and skiing seasons, Snälltåget operates night trains between Malmö and Storlien, via Stockholm and Åre. Between April and September, as well as on selected days during the rest of the year a night train also operates from

, via Malmö and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. In winter, a train runs weekly between Malmö and

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...

, via Salzburg and Zell am See, serving multiple stations with connections to Austrian ski resorts. It is the longest train service running within Europe.

Owner

Snälltåget is owned by

Transdev Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020. History The group was formed by the merger of V ...

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snalltaget Railway companies established in 2006 Railway companies of Sweden Transdev 2006 establishments in Sweden