Railroaded by the railway

For years I dreamt about a Baltic cruise and long summer days in Scandinavia. But my wife is not British and she gets seasick in the boating pond at Regent’s park. In any event she had made other plans. So last July I headed off alone for Copenhagen planning to travel to Stockholm and Oslo by train. After a few days in Copenhagen, which was full of cruise ships, I took the train along the coast to Helsingor and Hamlet’s castle from where a 20 minute ferry service across the Oresund links the Swedish city of Helsingborg.

Have you ever heard of a railway station without a ticket office? This was it. I found the tourist office in town but it was too busy. The only way to purchase tickets was either at automatic machines or the station snack bar. So I used my credit card to buy a sandwich and a single ticket to Stockholm on the SJAB, as Swedish Rail is affectionately known. All went according to plan until the local train reached a small town called Hassleholm, where the main line express would arrive ten minutes later. Only it never did.

Hassleholm caused me a lot more hassle than holm. Announcements in Swedish were not helpful, but I learnt from other passengers that the train would be late. In fact it had not even left Malmo! The delay turned out to be over two hours which meant arriving in the Swedish capital late at night without a hotel reservation. With time to spare and not a lot do do in Hassleholm, where there was a ticket office, I was able to book a hotel thanks to friendly railway staff.

After a three hour journey during which I saw forests and lakes and then more forests and lakes, as we were finally nearing the Swedish capital, a passenger informed me that the SJAB offered compensation in the form of credit vouchers for late arrivals. She helped me procure a form entitled Restids-garanti -to fill out and send off. Sounded good. Why not I thought, after all I was entitled to it. That was the good news.

There being no urgency I left it in my case until I returned to Paris. I had ten days to work out that it made sense to ask for a refund rather than a credit voucher since my next trip on the SJAB could be some time off, if ever. On the website I found a telephone number. Now for anyone who dislikes listening to options in English try options in Swedish. After three calls I gave up and copying the tickets and other details, I sent off the form and enclosures with a polite letter addressed to SJAB in a town called Krylbo, which sounds like a villain from an adventure comic book. It was 25th August 2008. There was no reply but I had discovered another SJAB address at Ostersund. So on 26th September I sent a reminder enclosing the letter to Krylbo.

With no response forthcoming, not one to give up easily, on 22 October I wrote to the Swedish Embassy in Paris who replied promptly. Their advice was to contact the French Embassy in Stockholm. This was now turning into a diplomatic incident. However as a British subject I thought this would hardly be an avenue worth pursuing. On 16th December I decided to enlist the cooperation of the Transport Minister in Stockholm. Surely they would be able to put pressure on the SJAB; still nothing.

I then e-mailed the principal Tourist Office in Stockholm; after all the country needs tourists. I warned them that I would never shop at IKEA again. They were very friendly and the kind young lady who responded was upset that I was taking it out on IKEA. But they couldn’t help. But I’m with the NUJ! I finally woke up. Use the power of the press! Give them a scoop - a tourist railroaded by the railways. So checking the Swedish press on the internet I wrote on 22nd January this year to the editor of Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm, which seemed like a cross between the Sun and the Daily Telegraph, just right. Obvious; use the communications industry. But they didn’t communicate.

Then before I had time to contemplate my next course of action, on 23rd February I was surprised to receive an apologetic e-mail from the SJAB company regretting the delay in replying and asking for my bank details for a full refund. Whether it was a ticking off from the Transport Minister or a Dagens Nyheter front page I will never know, but I finally got my money back. I sent an e-mail to the kind young lady at the Swedish Tourist Office informing her that all was resolved and I would be buying a new kitchen from IKEA. The moral? Never give up even when the odds seem daunting and can humanity survive without IKEA! 835 words Peter Fieldman