SWEDEN’s national operator SJ has secured a SKr 1.75bn ($US 170m) loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the purchase of 25 new 250 km/h EMUs to increase capacity on its mainline services.

The entry into service of the new EMUs will see the withdrawal of all locomotive-hauled passenger trains in Sweden, except for overnight services where SJ is currently undertaking a fleet refurbishment programme.

The new X80 fleet, based on Alstom’s Zefiro Express design, will also be the first in Sweden with a maximum speed of 250km/h. They will be deployed over a three-year period from 2026 on mainline services from Stockholm to Malmö, Västerås and Uppsala, as well as on other SJ routes with heavy traffic.

Passenger traffic in Sweden is currently growing at twice the rate of comparable networks elsewhere in Europe, although plans to build a high-speed network were cancelled by the incoming government in December 2022.

SJ originally signed a contract with Bombardier to purchase the new fleet EMUs in 2021, but a subsequent ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that it should have gone out to open tender required the procurement process to undertaken once again. This delayed the final purchase by two years.

The final contract with Alstom, which acquired Bombardier in 2021, does not differ significantly from the original contract. Construction is already underway, and SJ has built a mock-up where it is testing interior design features in close collaboration with staff and consumer groups, including those representing passengers with reduced mobility.

According to SJ, the EIB loan has been crucial to securing the purchase of the X80 fleet, as the operator could not meet the total cost of SKr 7bn from its own resources following the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

SJ is also modernising its X2000 tilting train fleet and double-deck EMUs for regional services, and its fleet refurbishment programme could cost a total of SKr 20bn once inflation, interest rates, and the weak exchange rate of the Swedish krona are taken into account.

Asked by IRJ if the acquisition of the new X80 fleet risked preventing other investment projects from going ahead, an SJ spokesman said: “Not as far as we can see today.”

“We’re of course very careful with what our total costs will look like, as well as our flow of revenue,” he said. “We’re currently noticing rising electricity prices, for example, they’re becoming considerably higher for operating trains.”

All trains in the north of Sweden have currently been cancelled due to temperatures falling well below -40°C, and for many years SJ has been criticised for failing to order trains that are able to cope with normal Nordic winter conditions.

While suspending operations for safety reasons when temperatures fall below -35°C will remain standard procedure, SJ says that new X80 fleet will be able to run during the Swedish winter.

“That’s really included in the order, that they need to work in the Scandinavian climate,” the SJ spokesman told IRJ.

“We’ve learned from the X40 double-deck trains, which are constructed in such a way that the brake pads easily become iced over. All the things you could predict will be prepared for.”