In January 1995 I moved for two and a half years to Finland. I took the train and not the airplane, for four reasons: much more beautiful, better for the environment, a 'single' ticket wasn't possible by plane, and in the train a lot more luggage can be carried.
In September 1997 my work contract is over and I'm preparing to travel back. Because of the same reasons as mentioned above, I'll take again the train. But when I ask at the station in Helsinki again about the luggage service of the railways, I hear:
I leave. In Helsinki my fully loaded bicycle can go for free on the bus to the station. In the train to Turku it goes in the luggage car, for a payment of €6.70. On the boat to Stockholm it can stand on the car deck for free.
Sweating, 08:00, I arrive there at the ticket window:
A little later, after I regained consciousness:
That evening I take the night train at 22:00. The plan is as follows: I have to get out at 05:00 in Helsingborg (no good night's sleep tonight!) where my bicycle should arrive at 06:40. The local office of SJ Express will open at 07:00. If I then pick up my bicycle there, I can reach the ferry at 07:40 and travel on to Copenhagen, and can be home at 22:30.
At 05:00 in Helsingborg I get out of the train, which goes on to Copenhagen, where I also want to go, but I just have to get out here, only because those Swedes insist on transporting my bicycle separately, but can't transport it to Copenhagen.
Eventually I get on the boat, but not before 09:00, which makes me miss the connection in Copenhagen, and makes me get home another half day later: not until the next morning. Fortunately my bicycle can go on some trains in Denmark and Germany; enough to get through there.
It took me two and a half days to do a distance that can be done by train in one and a half day, because the Swedish railways can't handle a bicycle, and the Danish won't send it.
The amounts of money in this story have been converted to Euros via approximate current rates (2007), without inflation correction.
I didn't take any furniture with me, but I did take a considerable amount of other stuff. For this, I made use of a luggage service of the railways: 3 pieces of luggage could be sent separately, within certain weight and size limits. I sent a bicycle, a guitar and box full of clothes separately, and travelled myself with two heavy bags and a violin through Germany, Denmark and Sweden, without too many problems, in a day and a half to Helsinki.
"No, unfortunately: that service has been cancelled two years ago. Luggage can not be sent within Europe anymore. You'll have to take everything with you yourself, or send it by post."
As things always go, my quantity of stuff has increased even more in those two and a half years, and is now really too much to carry everything myself. I send a couple of boxes by post - that does cost money, but at least it's possible - and hope to be able to carry the rest myself.
The bicycle really can't go by post and therefore will have to go with me, and I think up the plan to use that one then as a luggage trolley. I load it full with a heavy bag, a sleeping bag, a camping mattress, a carpet and a cardboard tube, all on the rear baggage carrier, and a guitar tied to the side and supported by a pedal. This way I can't ride the bicycle, but I can guide it by hand, while I am having a large backpack and the violin on my back. It's not easy, but it goes OK.
When I ask at Helsinki station about railway tickets for bicycles, the lady at the ticket desk tells me:
"From Helsinki to Turku you'll have to buy on the train a separate ticket for the bicycle; on the boat from Turku to Stockholm it can go for free. After that, in Sweden, I don't know; you'll have to ask over there what to do."
Arrived in Stockholm, 07:15 in the morning, there is a special bus from the port to the station, but with all my luggage I don't fit in there: it is already completely full with travellers. Well, then I just go on foot, with my steel mule, dragging to the station.
"Hi; I want to go to Copenhagen and I have a bicycle with me. Which train can I take, and do I have to pay for the bicycle here or on the train?"
"What - a bicycle? No, that's not possible. You can't take bicycles on the train. You have to send it separately."
"What? In Finland they say I can't, and here you say I must? Well allright, that'll have to be then."
"For that you'll have to go to the luggage department of the station."
I go to the luggage department:
"Hi; apparently I can't take my bicycle on the train; and I have to send it. So I'd like to send my bicycle to the Netherlands."
"What - to the Netherlands? No, that's not possible. We only send luggage within Sweden. For sending internationally you have to go to SJ Express. Here is the address."
This railway daughter company should be located a few blocks away from the station. I drag toward it with all my luggage. But I end up on a bridge, straight above the place where I have to be. It appears that Blekholmsgatan, the street where SJ Express is, lies six metres below all the streets around it, and there doesn't seem to be any way down, except for one steep narrow alley, looking like a parking garage entrance and clearly banned for bicycles and pedestrians. I am both bicycle and pedestrian. I ask passers-by, but nobody appears to know:
"Yes, there should be a staircase somewhere."
"But I can't go over a staircase like this, can I!?"
"No, that's true ... There should surely be a way to that street somewhere, but... I don't know."
I walk several times around the whole block, and ask at least ten people, but even two policewomen don't know how the only service that can transport a bicycle internationally, can be reached with a bicycle. After dragging around for two hours, 10:00, I am back with bicycle and everything at the luggage department of the station:
"Puff, pant ... Hi, say, that's not going to work. SJ Express is unreachable."
"No? Wait, I'll call them."
After a phone call in Swedish:
"O.K., you have to go either there down a stairway, or here around the other side of the station; there is a road that ends up down on that street."
I try to get round the other side of the station, but there is only a massive fence. No getting through there. I get back:
"Hey, I'll take that stairway, you know, if there's really no other way. Where was that now exactly?"
"Yeah that should be somewhere on the south side of that block."
I drag myself and my entire load back toward Blekholmsgatan, but can't find those stairs either. What I do find, is a small office of another SJ (Swedish railways)- related company, where they tell me:
"I don't know either how exactly you're supposed to get there, but I know another way. You come in here with all your stuff and take the lift two floors down."
With a lot of trouble I get the bicycle and all the load into the lift, with even more trouble out again, then down five more steps, out of the back door, and behold: I am finally on Blekholmsgatan. At last! Sweating, puffing and panting, I enter at 10:45 at SJ Express, in a garage-like hall, and say to the men in overall:
"Pfffff......pant...... Hi. I want to send this bicycle to the Netherlands."
"What - to the Netherlands? No, that's not possible."
"What?!!"
"No, only within Sweden. And to Norway."
"If I had wanted to send it within Sweden I could have done that at the station!!"
Back in the office with the lift, the man there tells me:
"What? That is indeed very strange. You'll just have to demand that they help you. They must be able to get your bicycle to the Netherlands. Don't let yourself be brushed off; be assertive!"
Mentally strengthened I get back to SJ Express:
"You guys haven't got rid of me yet. I want to hear now: how do I get my bicycle to the Netherlands?"
"We can't send it to the Netherlands. The furthest we can do is to Helsingborg (from where the ferry to Denmark leaves)."
"Can it be there tonight, at the same time with me?"
"No, that takes several days."
"Can somebody then send it on for me, from there to the Netherlands?"
"No, you'll have to do that yourself."
"Can I speak to your boss?"
"Yes, in that office over there."
In the little office the lady behind the counter tells me:
"I'm sorry, we can't send anything to more southern countries, because Denmark doesn't take any goods from us. Denmark doesn't send any goods by train at all. I'm afraid that the only way to send your bicycle to the Netherlands is to hire a transport company. Here is the Yellow Pages; you can use our phone. I recommend company xxx."
I call that company, and get to hear:
"What - a bicycle? No, we don't transport those. But xxxx does."
I call xxxx:
"What - a bicycle? No, no. But xxxxx does."
It goes on like that for a while. Eventually the only Swedish company that dares to transport a bicycle is an air transport company, and this would cost about €450; approximately three times the purchase price of my bicycle.
Right; so this is no option. It is apparently totally impossible to send my bicycle to the Netherlands, and also to take it with me on the train. Well, then I'll have to send it to Helsingborg, and pick it up there myself. But then I demand it to be there tonight, when I am there too. Well, it is now 11:15; if I am quick I can still send my bicycle from the station to Helsingborg, and catch the train myself at 11:36.
I get back with the entire load: through the back door of the office with the lift, five steps up, into the lift, two floors up, out of the lift, out of the front door, and dragging to the station, the luggage department.
"Pant pant pant pant ... well -gasp- those guys at SJ Express also can only send within Sweden. You can do that as well. So: please to Helsingborg, but it has to be there tonight."
"That's not possible; that takes three days."
"What? Is it being transported by bicycle or something? In a moment a train is leaving that will arrive in Helsingborg tonight. Then why can't it go with that train?"
"No. Sometimes it goes a little faster, but we guarantee three days."
I demand to speak to speak to the boss, who says:
"If you want to have it there tonight, you're too late. You should have been here three days ago."
"Three days ago I was in Finland!!"
"By the way, how did you get your bicycle from Finland here?"
"In the train and on the boat! No problem!"
"Oh... well, that's not possible here."
"But do I really have to take three days longer on my trip? Can't it really go a little faster?"
"Well, the fastest is... tomorrow morning."
"O.K. Tomorrow morning. I'll take this evening the night train to Helsingborg, and pick it up there in the morning. Let's do that."
"Er... then you have to go to SJ Express."
I faint.
"But I do want to know whether I'll get the same bullshit in Denmark and Germany."
"You can ask that at the international ticket window."
"I'll go round there. Can I leave my things here for a moment?"
"No; you'll have to take them with you."
"Please!!! Mercy!!!"
"No; you have to take them with you. We can't bear responsibility for that."
At the international ticket window I get phone numbers of the Danish and German Railways. Calling them from a phone booth in the hall, I learn that they have trains that allow bicycles; enough to get through those countries. That gives some courage. Allright; back to SJ Express. Drag, puff, drag, pant. Into the office of the obscure company, into the lift, two floors down, out of the lift, five steps down, out of the back door, through the street, back at SJ Express. Time: 12:30.
"Puffff.... O.K. I want to send this bicycle to Helsingborg, and it has to be there tomorrow morning at 07:00."
"Err... that's possible."
It costs €30, and it will be there at 06:40 tomorrow morning. I consider sending some more luggage along, but that would become again astronomically expensive, and since the rest of the luggage is allowed in the train, I better not do that. This means however that now I have to start dragging all my luggage without my bicycle, which really is a cross. Through the street, into the back door, up the steps, into the lift, up, out of the lift, out of the front door, through the streets: I almost break my back. Having arrived in the station (14:00) fortunately I can use a trolley. After that: puffff... finally time to sit down. I sink down in the restaurant in the middle of the station hall. After seven (!) hours of heavy dragging, lunch tastes divine.
Waiting. Between 05:00 and 07:00 at station Helsingborg there is bitterly little to do.
At 07:00 SJ Express indeed opens (which fortunately is inside the station building here) and I am standing before the door:
"Good morning. Can I have my bicycle?"
"Erm... let me have a look... that will arrive at ten to eight."
Very nice. This way I'll miss the ferry, and my planning goes again to pieces. At 07:50 I am again before their door:
"Can I have my bicycle?"
Surprisingly enough my bicycle is now indeed there.
"Sign here."
"Certainly; here you are."
Fortunately the ferry goes every twenty minutes. Maybe I can still catch up on my delay; after all, in Copenhagen I have a few hours margin between trains. Let's see. I drag with my improvised fully loaded luggage trolley and fully loaded back to the ferry entrance, but:
"You can't go in here with a bicycle. You have to take the entrance for the cars."
This turns out to mean that I have to walk a detour of three kilometers. While I am doing this, I see cars dashing past me and drive onto the ferry, and this way I see several ferries leave in front of my eyes. At the till for the cars I come dragging by:
"Hi... pufffff... I don't find it fair that I have to walk all this way."
"Yes; I also wonder why you have to do that," answers the till lady.
In Denmark I am forced to take the detour via Odense and the bridge across the Store Bælt. From Copenhagen I have 7 more stops, among which an interesting last stop in Duisburg: from 04:00 to 06:30 in the morning. Again I can interrupt my night's sleep to sit and gaze at such an interesting deserted railway platform for two and a half hours in the early morning.
Eventually I arrive at 07:45 in Arnhem.
Maybe it's especially cycling Finland travellers like me, who are affected by the fact that Sweden makes such a problem out of bicycles on the train. But either way it would be nice if this could change.
In the meantime (2006) I've read that the Swedish state railway company SJ still doesn't take bicycles, but that there are other Swedish rail companies that do. Maybe the situation has improved a little. Let's see.
