Swedish Railways BROKE THE LAW!!! Let me Explain...

This is not your normal Nonstop Eurotrip video. And it's sad that this video has had to be made...

This is a video from my good friend @Simon-Andersen explaining what happened to him, and his fellow passengers, when their SJ Sleeper Train from Stockholm to Hamburg, failed to stop for them at Copenhagen Airport on the night of the 26th/27th May 2023.

Then follows a quite comical exchange of phone calls, emails and tweets from SJ blaming everyone but themselves, refusing to follow EU law, and then ignoring all parties involved.

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[Simon-Andersen]

UPDATE: Both I and the other passenger that night have now received compensation for our troubles from SJ and an explanation of what happened. I can now only hope things improve in the future should something go wrong again with the SJ EuroNight.

[alph]

If the train is cancelled and you decide to not travel, you are entitled to a full compensation per EU law. Please also report this incident to the EU ombudsmann for rail passenger rights.

[AMacProOwner]

I had no clue this was a right to be compensated. As a swede I was so surprised when DB allowed me to rebook my journey for free when **another** operator couldn’t keep up.
In Sweden you’d just have to rebuy a super expensive surge priced ticket. Travellers really deserve better!

Transportstyrelsen is the bane of my existence.

[jumpinallans]

Tough experience and hope SJ eventually compensate all concerned. Please post a follow up or follow ups on this case. Cheers & Support!

[JosephBrown-hmhk]

Well done all round for speaking up (and for providing a platform to speak up). I hope you get it sorted. For SJ's info, I am about 2 weeks away from booking an itinerary around Norway, Sweden and Denmark. I have a number of rail trips included and, as it happens, SJ appear to be on the list of planned carriers. I will now change that list so they will not be inconvenienced by my family taking up some of their seats.

[arnonuehm]

This does make me worry about my upcoming trip with SJ this fall. I'm taking this night train from Hamburg to Stockholm and back a few days later.

[ruffleduffle]

What a disgrace! Hope SJ will finally get their act together from public attention

[felixonrails]

Really shameful for SJ. They really did an elephant out of a (pretty nasty) fly by themselves.

[Kgreisholm]

I really feel with you mate! The problem is often, when people are treated shit, they still have to know all their rights. Why can’t companies just suck it up, giving what you are fully entitled to, and then just be happy for a customer, that likely would give them a second chance. You even tried to do everything in you power to confront them ASAP about this. Hope you will get a big apology together with right compensation🙏

[Sakthi-ojbr]

Hi Simon.

First things first, I am so sorry the trip to Germany did not turn out turn be as planned.

I can recall a similar incident that happened to me last December when I had planned to travel from Stockholm to Kiruna. The train was delayed by almost 10 hours, where we had to change trains two times to the destination and due to the number of people on board couldn’t find a seat for almost 6 hours.

The train conductor treated us rudely with some abuses because we couldn’t speak Swedish although we were tourists from Germany. Not only did SJ not refund us the money for the Journey but they also did not apologise for the treatment of us and all of our fellow passengers during the trip.

I cannot imagine the same situation happening in Germany or in other European countries for this instance.

I hope and I sincerely do that after your video, that they do a serious and thorough review of their staffs and also their internal procedures in how they communicate with customers.

Last, but not least I feel strongly that they should be subject to the European laws, and should not be allowed to walk away from such situations, bare hand.

[flipfloptanlines]

Hey sometimes you gotta call bullsh*t. I guess that works in Europe as well.

[onelyone]

In the nordics there are konsumentombudsmän who could most likely help you. These are people who'se job is to ensure consumer laws are followed. Most companies will give in, if threatened with the konsumentombudsman

[johnmehaffey]

Well done for calling them out, push this all the way because it could happen again to someone else or even worse a mum on her own with a small family, hope you get this sorted if you do it will also help others

[JudgeHill]

I hope they learn their lesson from this.

[davidwebb]

SJ sold me a ticket on Norwegian rail Oslo to Gothenburg. Norwegian cancelled the service due to engineering work. They did put on replacement bus service, but that left the Oslo rail station20 minutes BEFORE the scheduled/cancelled train service. Thus I missed it. Forcing me to buy a coach ticket to get to Gothenburg to catch my plane flight home. SJ said its not their problem, go talk to Norwegian for a refund. Norwegian said they didn’t sell the ticket, that I had to talk to SJ. So I lost my money.

[imsbvs]

So depressing when things don't happen as they should, thankfully this is not something that occurs very often. Still, if I have issues that are not resolved properly I always reach out to the ombudsman for the service in question, they have the power to investigate and ensure the law is followed.

[elegant_travelling]

You shouldn’t “feel bad” about doing this video. It’s only if railway companies are held accountable that we can hope more people will travel by rail in the future. You’re a rail enthusiast and I’m sure will continue travelling by train despite the bad experience, but someone who perhaps decided to try rail travel after flying/driving might instead decide to just go back to those traditional modes of transport (not that this type of things don’t happen with airlines too of course).
So well done for shining, a light on the issue. 👏
Please let us know the outcome.

[asimba]

Sorry to hear that. SJ is getting worse and worse recently. Last time when I was in Stockholm. We took the train to Göteborg. It’s a midday departure train but they don’t have any food onboard due to service provider issue. All they can offer is overpriced water and coffee. The text alert regarding to the food issue came 1 min before the departure time. That left no time for us to prepare anything. A Very disappointed over 4hours trip.

[michasreisefieber]

I had some problems with Deutsche Bahn some time ago. I wanted to visit a friends who temporary lived at the north sea coast of germany that time. I booked a return ticket, but then some time later they made major construction works on my route so I got a re routing that took a lot longer and made me change trains at other stations then planed with very short connection times.

I wrote out to Deutsche Bahn that I want to give my ticket back for a full refund, because I see no way for me to travel under that new circumstances, especially because I have a handicap with my eyes and changing trains in 5-7 minutes on stations I don't know would not be an option for me.

They only wrote back that my ticket was a non refundable option and they could not take it back.

I again wrote them, that they decide for the construction and give me a complete different product than what i had paid for and the expected delays and inconvininience made me not want to travel anymore.

Then they worte back they give the case to the arbitration board for public traffic belongings and they would surely decide that I have to pay for the ticket because I booked it.

Short time later I got right from the board and they wrote, that due to the expected delay from more then 1 hour it was my personal ride to cancel my travel plans. So Deutsche Bahn had to give me the money back.

[DART]

I like the subway photos on the wall behind you at the start!