Norway is back on the platform – Ytring
2022 has been a breakthrough year for rail holidays in Europe, with interrail ticket sales significantly higher than before the pandemic.
Few Europeans have had the ticket, which allows them to travel freely in 33 countries in Europe, including to Norway.
Because of interrail our offer with half-price tickets, flight chaos on the continent and increasing climate awareness, many have chosen the ticket which allows them to choose between Finland and Florence, Berlin and Bergen, between Turin and Trondheim. Or anywhere else
The choice probably falls far too easily on Florence, Berlin and Turin. Because the train passengers don’t even know that there is a train to Norway.
An important reason for this is that when it puts in the bus for the train, the timetables for the buses are not put into the international travel planners that train tourists use.
I all summer, and for many years before the pandemic, it has been the bus for the train on a small part of the stretch between Gothenburg and Oslo, Norway’s main connection with the continent.
This has made it look as if Norway is almost isolated from the rest of Europe, railway-wise. If you searched Europe’s most used international train journey planners, Deutsche Bahn’s DB Navigator and Interrail’s RailPlanner, these buses did not appear at all.
The tourists were only given information or at best were recommended a detour of several hours in Sweden. Ironically, this alternative route information contained Swedish bus for trains to Oslo.
Other countries manage to talk about their replacement buses. But we don’t.
The problem appeared also when it was the bus for trains between Sweden and Trondheim earlier this summer: the buses did not exist in the international travel planners.
It was not possible to find out that Trondheim has both day and night train connections from Stockholm, and night trains from Gothenburg every night. Although the trains went almost all the way, only replaced by the bus near Trondheim.
Norway is actually very suitable for foreign interrail tourists. We have an overview of the railway system and some of Europe’s most scenic train lines. At the same time, single tickets are relatively expensive, not something that makes traveling with an interrail ticket particularly attractive: you don’t have to pay anything else and possibly reservations and sleeping compartments.
The conditions should be right to attract train holidaying Brits, Dutch, Germans, Spaniards, Italians and other Europeans. But when we are unable to tell them about the offer that actually exists, they will not come.
How many guest nights Norway has missed out, I can only speculate. But the fact that we fail to take advantage of the fact that so many Europeans have a ticket in hand that can give them free travel to Norway is a declaration of bankruptcy.
With increased climate awareness, energy crisis and problems in the airline industry, I will continue to continue in the years to come. Big bets are placed on getting more tourists to Norway by cruise ship, plane and car. Trains cannot be an exception.
So what does it take? In the short term, we must make sure that international travel planners actually tell that it exists together – or bus by train – to Norway. The responsibility for this lies with the state company Entur, which operates ticket sales and route information for all public transport in Norway.
We must also make it possible for those with an interrail ticket to reserve a seat on Norwegian trains via Entur’s travel planner. And we have toinformation on how to get from the hubs of Hamburg and Copenhagen, which have many train tourists, to Oslo and beyond in Norway.
In the long run should we for improve the route offer to and from abroad. We should also work for ø øke the capacity and speed of the lines that run from Oslo to Stockholm and Gothenburg. The railway lines are single-track over long stretches with routes that have remained unchanged since the end of the 1800s.
Not least we must tell the tourists that it is actually possible to get to and from Norway by train, even when there are replacement buses.
This summer, many Interrailers have written off Norway as a train destination, due to the poor route information. European tourists have posted their frustration on Twitter and in the Facebook group Togferie, and we should listen to what they have to say.
If Norway is to attract train tourists from the rest of Europe, they can access information as quickly as possible.