European Railroad Discussion > [SV] The Blue Train Saga of SKJB

1. Blue Train beginnings
Imagine you are an entrepreneur with a hobby on the railroads side, so you are not limited financially to where most of us are. Your main bread might be on the ship freight side, but you also desire to work on "the ships that run on rails". So you have desire, capital, and sometimes comes the occasion when all the other pieces come together. This is a story of the Swedish Blue Train , locally called as Blå Tåget.  

Around 2010 Swedish rail networks were opening for long distance traffic, after some earlier phases of opening freight and local/regional sectors. Any operator could now run all kind trains on on the whole network. The most viable routes outside always busy regional traffic were routes from Stockholm to Gothenburg and Malmö. Malmö route had already Veolia (now Transdev/Snälltåget) running it several times per day traction provided by a startup HectorRail. So the obvious choice from the demand view point for unsubsidized traffic was the route of Stockholm to Gothenburg.

To study options and exploit possibilities Skandinaviska Jernbanen AB (SKJB for rolling stock shortenings) was set up and the newly created company started with a hired locomotive and around 5 used 1960s coaches. Hired locomotive, as far as I can remember, was initially a typical freight TRAXX F140 AC2 from Railpool, a bit slow but also inexpensive to use. As a momentary relief power Rc3/Rc6 locos were also hired when need be from competition SJ. Swedes have a custom to help their competition as colleagues too. Coaches were repaired for initial runs the best they could. One of the stories tells how difficult it was to move the comfortable sofas in: obviously you were to give in moving them inside via doors and corridors, and you had to remove a window for this operation! Personnel was at first hired and many seemed to have their interest in railroading too.

December 11th 2011 was the big day when the first Blue Train / Blä Tåget started from Gothenburg/ Göteborg to Stockholm. Operation ran 4 busiest days each week, twice route extended to Uppsala, an hours drive north of Stockholm. In the afternoons Blå Tåget retraced its route back to Gothenburg. The beginning of the 2012 was to prove a decisive phase for the new startup. Any service can only gather loyal customers at a certain pace. Operations for 2011 and beginning of the 2012 were to be seriously in red. How could the startup continue operations, where some others had failed earlier...this will be discussed in part 2 on this thread.        

Below a series of pictures of Blue Train arriving to Hallsberg in 2014.
 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/16 00:56 by McKey.

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1. Death Cycle
As we well know, growth and initial organizing can push companies over the cliff, if customer demand does not pick up quickly. SKJB ( the owner of Blue Train) has been fortunate enough as the owner has other running companies too. Loosing some money in one business at its early phases can tolerated as others are profitable. Even so, year 2012 was terrible for SKJB: 15 million crown income (divide by 10 for other bigger currencies) caused losses of 10 million! Yet, quite clearly the company had secured its place at the hearts of its initial customers, and patronage was growing. For the year 2013 most visible changes were acquiring more coaches and changes to employment. At the end of 2013 it seems like SKJB turned from hired to leased employment, something that could be adjusted with the demand. Many more old coaches were rebuilt and painted dark green, most Swedish or Norwegian, some even of German origin. The route, locomotion and operations otherwise stayed the same. With demand for services doubling company also showed 1 million crowns results that year. Blue Train had managed to pass the worst of the initial death curve and was in green for the first time. Also, the work for excellent customer service and low cost solutions had started to work for the company, bringing even more future customers to its blue train.

Some dark blue coaches:
     


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/16 00:57 by McKey.

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3. Why Dark Blue Coloring?
Dark blue coloring has been the obvious choice for SKJB on its Blue Train: in the earlier days this shade of color were associated with luxury, or turning it around many luxury trains were in fact using these very same colors. So, where Blue Train is missing in its speed to SJ X2000, competition on this route, it wins in atmosphere. And, combining simultaneously budget airline method of getting everything always booked has been ingenious. The train is often booked to respectable level.

2014 was a year of growth and many changes to operator SKJB. Even more coaches were acquired and these were also used for running some charter trains. For this purpose five third hand El13s were bought. El13 is an ex. Norwegian type with huge popularity these days.

Results for 2014 showed sales of 40 million crowns and profits of 1,5 million. What catches eye is that no one was hired by the company anymore. So 100% of production personnel, support functions, management, etc. received their pay from somewhere else.

Pictures of the luxury dark blue coaches:


 

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4. Forward in 2015
Latest year has been favorable to SKJB. Albeit it looks like competition in also appearing. Hong Kong and Sweden based MTR (Mass Transit Railroad) started running between Stockholm and Gothenburg in mid 2015. As a result SJ has withdrawn some of its X2000/SJ2000 train sets from Gothenburg - Stockholm line. Competition MTR acquired a fleet of brand new Stadler Rail manufactured FLIRT3 EMUs for connection between the two largest cities in Sweden. MTR entering the competition was also known in 2014 by the time SKJB was planning another Blue Train. It was decided that this train would not be and the owners instead renovated a building in Stockholm and started running a Hotel Queen Silvia: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g189852-d7391443-Reviews-Hotel_Drottning_Kristina_Stureplan-Stockholm.html

It soon became apparent MTR is not competing as much with SKJB as it competes with SJ, and SKJB put forward its original plan for another train. This runs today on peek hours only and is dubbed as Gröna Tåget, a Green Train. There might also be another Blå Tåget between the same cities as the first one runs, and this will run at the same direction: mornings from Gothenburg to Stockholm and in the evenings back. It will be interesting to follow the news on the trains and how the hotel will get rid of its sometimes very poor customer reviews. I'm quite confident that SKJB owners are quite capable of addressing all needs for the trains and the hotel.

It will also be interesting to see, where the next, maybe blue again, train will run.

Below some of the SKJB locomotion, Siemens Vectron AC64 (German class 193) and Norwegian El13: 

 

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