2022 has been a breakthrough year for train holidays in Europe, and the sale of interrail tickets is significantly higher than before the pandemic. Rarely have more Europeans had the ticket that allows them to travel freely in 33 countries in Europe, including to Norway. Due to interrail’s spring offer with half-price tickets, flight chaos on the continent and increasing climate awareness, several people have chosen the ticket that allows them to choose between Finse 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 are trains to Norway. An important reason for this is that when bus for train is inserted, the timetables for the buses are not entered in the international travel planners that train tourists use. All summer, and for many years before the pandemic, there has been a bus instead of a train on a small part of the stretch between Gothenburg and Oslo, Norway’s main connection with the continent. As a result, it has looked as if Norway is almost isolated from the rest of Europe, in terms of trains. If you searched Europe’s most widely used international train journey planners, Deutsche Bahn’s DB Navigator and Interrail’s RailPlanner, these buses did not appear at all. The tourists only received an error message or, at best, were advised a several-hour long detour in Sweden. Ironically, this alternative route contained information about a Swedish bus for trains to Oslo. Other countries manage to talk about their replacement buses. But we don’t. The problem also appeared when there was a bus for train 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 a day and night train connection from Stockholm, and a night train from Gothenburg every night. Although the trains ran almost all the way, only replaced by buses near Trondheim. Norway is actually very suitable for foreign interrail tourists. We have a clear railway system and some of Europe’s most scenic train lines. At the same time, single tickets are relatively expensive, which makes traveling with an interrail ticket particularly attractive: then you don’t have to pay anything other than any seat reservations and sleeping compartments. The conditions should be favorable 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 days Norway has missed, I can only speculate. But the fact that we are unable 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 increasing climate awareness, the energy crisis and problems in the airline industry, the number of train tourists will probably continue to increase in the coming years. Big efforts are being made to get 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 ensure that international travel planners actually tell that there are trains – or buses for trains – 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 must provide information on how to get from the hubs of Hamburg and Copenhagen, which have many train tourists, to Oslo and beyond in Norway. In the longer term, we should improve the route offer to and from abroad. We should also work to increase 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 not changed since the end of the 19th century. Not least we have to 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 Interrail users 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 Togferie Facebook group, and we should listen to what they have to say. If Norway is to attract train tourists from the rest of Europe, access to information must be improved as quickly as possible.
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