The first main lines opened in 1856: Göteborg-Jönsered and Malmö-Lund. During the 1860s the main West line (Göteborg-Stockholm) and the main South line (Falköping-Nässjö-Malmö) were completed. The main North line was started and the Stockholm-Uppsala section opened for traffic in 1863.

The first major railway plan for Sweden was presented in 1845. This project was to be realised with the help of foreign capital but collapsed owing to widespread alarm that Sweden´s infrastructure would all into the hands of foreign interests. The Swedish state then took the initiative and in the early 1850s the Head of the Topographical Corps, Karl Akrell, presented a preliminary plan for main lines in the south of Sweden.

The breakthrough came in the 1853-54 parliamentary session when it was decided that the state should build and operate a network of main lines. Other railways could be built on private initiative, but the state retained the right to investigate such plans and grant concessions.

Akrell considered that the railways should run alongside the major national highways and should be built where there was a need for transport. The man responsible for designing the main-line network, Colonel Nils Ericson (also an eminent cartographer) chose a different solution, as did the members of the state railway committee at that time. The railways were not to be built parallel to other traffic systems but should run inland at some distance from the coast or inland waterways. Vital military-strategic considerations lay behind this proposal, as well as the thought that the railways would bring new life to the “slumbering” districts. This latter reason, which is reminiscent of our present-day regional policy, was nevertheless secondary to the desire to establish good connections between Sweden´s industrial and economic centres.

The building of the state railway network was mainly financed by foreign loans. So as not to favour any particular part of the country work began at several places at the same time. The first main-line sections – Göteborg-Jönsered and Malmö-Lund – opened in 1856, but it was to be many years before Sweden had a railway network. The main West line - Stockholm-Falköping-Göteborg – and the main South line – Falköping-Nässjö-Malmö – were completed in stages during the 1860s. The first section of the main North line – Stockholm-Uppsala – opened for traffic in 1863 and in 1872 the main North-West line – Laxå-Karlstad-Charlottenberg – began operating. The following year the main North line reached Krylbo.

The routes of the main lines were the subject of heated debates in Parliament, as was the case with the main East line through Östergötland. The last link – Katrineholm-Norrköping-Nässjö – opened in 1874 with a route west of Lake Sommen.

The Gauge In the early days of the railways there was no standard gauge. It was decided, on the basis of English and continental models, that the Swedish main lines should have standard gauge, that is, 1.435m. The private railways were not at all governed by these rules and private proposals included many different gauges, most of them narrower that that of the main lines; in other words, they were narrow-gauge railways. Narrow-gauge railways are smaller constructions than main-line railways and are therefore cheaper to build. In addition the cost of transferring loads between railways with different gauges was low. As time passed two normal narrow gauges developed alongside the standard gauge: 1.067m. and 0.891m. The former was based on an international model, the latter corresponded to three Swedish feet. A quarter (4,000km) of the approximately 17,000 km of railways built in Sweden were narrow gauge.

Read more about today´s Swedish railway network on the Swedish National Rail Administration home page.

SNA 2002-09-02