Record increase in the number of bookings with SJ.
It can be difficult to book a train ticket during midsummer.
A record number of people want to take the train next weekend.
– We are running exactly all the trains we have, says Tobbe Lundell, press manager at SJ.
Midsummer is, along with the Christmas holidays, the biggest travel holiday of the year. Haven't you booked your train trip yet? It can be difficult to find a good ticket. More and more people are skipping the flight and taking the train instead.
In SJ Travel increases by a whopping 34 percent between June 17 and 23, compared to the same period last year. This is a record figure for the Midsummer weekend.
The big travel day is Thursday, June 20, when interest in traveling is at its highest.
– The booking situation for midsummer is unusually high, both during rush hours and on our other departures. To meet the increasing demand, we are running exactly all the trains we have. The fact that more Swedes are choosing to avoid the often numerous and long traffic jams of car traffic in favor of the train is of course positive, not least for the environment, says Tobbe Lundell, press manager at SJ.
Book your ticket on time
The most popular route is between Stockholm and Gothenburg, where over half of all SJ seats are already booked. Other popular routes during midsummer are Stockholm – Uppsala and Stockholm – Malmö – Copenhagen.
– Now is the time to book your Midsummer trip. More than half of all seats between Stockholm and Gothenburg have already been taken. For those travelers who are late, there are still opportunities to book tickets, especially if you have the opportunity to travel during Midsummer Eve when the pressure is lower, says Tobbe Lundell.
Track work
Since Midsummer is such a big travel weekend, it is particularly sensitive if train traffic is affected by disruptions. On the Thursday before Midsummer 2017, train traffic was hit by chaos after a cable fire in a tunnel in Stockholm. Thousands of train passengers were forced to wait a long time before they could get to their final destination. This meant that SJ traffic management had to work intensively to piece together traffic on Midsummer Eve.
In some parts of the country, track work is taking place during Midsummer or immediately after the Midsummer weekend. This means that train passengers sometimes have to take a replacement bus instead. All planned track work can be found on SJ's website.
Midsummer week's 10 most popular travel destinations
- Stockholm C
- Gothenburg
- Uppsala
- Malmo
- Vasteras
- Linkoping
- Copenhagen
- Lund
- Norrkoping
- Katrineholm
Source: Aftonbladet
Source: SJ's travel statistics on the total number of trips for the period between 17 – 23 June 2019.
