Sold out Norwegian trains could have carried more passengers

SJ Norge reports an increase in the demand for night-trains during this summer greater than they have been able to accommodate.

“Some trains have been fully booked long ahead of time” informs the commercial director Lena Angela Nesteby for SJ Norge to Dagsavisen. 

SJ Norge runs the passenger trains on the Dovre-line, Meråker-line, Norland-line, Rauma-line, and Røros-line. The number of passengers could have been higher if Entur were able to make the sleeping compartments available even when the seats were sold out.

Service director Rune Sperlin in Entur explains the problem as:

“Sleeping compartments are sold as an extra product. Customers must purchase a “normal” ticket first, either adult, senior, student, or military, and thereafter order an extra product such as a sleeping compartment.”

“This means that in the case where all seats are sold before all of the sleeping compartments are sold our system registers the trains as full, even if there are sleeping compartments available. This hasn’t been a problem in the past as sleeping compartments usually sell out before the normal seats.”

On the Nordland-line there have been daily night trains since SJ took over operations on the 8. June. Since the 13. July there have been night trains every weekday on the Dovre-line. Go-Ahead began running night trains again the 3. August. They have four sleeping wagons on the Sørland-line with 15 compartments in each wagon. Vy, who operates the night train on the Bergen-line, says they have plenty of space on the late departures and that during the summer the occupancy has been around 40%.   

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today