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I attempted to travel from Värnamo to Jönköping on a Sunday using the timetable downloaded from this page (the actual timetable PDF seems to have been taken down).

timetable

Due to a delay of the incoming train, I missed a connection to the outgoing train. I was told to take a bus which required me to wait for a long time.

The trains are Krösatågen, and I bought the ticket from a Länstrafiken ticket machine at the station.

Can I get compensation because of a missed connection?

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  • SJ has a good summary of your compensation rights, in English, though it's not quite clear to me if you should apply to SJ or to some other agency for compensation on this particular route.
    – mlc
    Aug 14, 2022 at 18:13
  • The trains I took were not SJ trains.
    – Michael Tsang
    Aug 14, 2022 at 18:25
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    @MichaelTsang The SJ compensation rules are based on laws and regulations and not merely SJ goodwill, so the compensation rules from other train operators will be very similar. I do believe however, that to answer your question, we will need to know the route you were travelling and where you were supposed to change trains. A 3 minute transfer sounds awfully tight. It might be a bug in whatever route planner you used that such a transfer was suggested.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Aug 14, 2022 at 19:18
  • I didn't use a planner. I used a PDF timetable downloaded from the traffic authority.
    – Michael Tsang
    Aug 14, 2022 at 23:06
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    @MichaelTsang It is not possible to help you unless you reveal the details I asked about in my last comment. Where did you travel from, where did you travel to, where did you transfer and if the transfer is suggested in a timetable, a link to the timetable would be very helpful.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Aug 15, 2022 at 8:36

2 Answers 2

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You need to consider the minimum change times.

For example, at Nässjö Centralstation, the indicated minimum change time is generally 10 minutes. If you have a through ticket with a change at Nässjö C, you will be given a connection with at least 10 minutes to change. For other connections, the recommended time is even longer, such as 30 minutes from Snälltåget to SJ or 60 minutes if the SJ train is snabbtåg. If you try your own connection with only 3 minutes, the risk is on you and there is no warranty if you miss your connection. However, if the train you are connection to is a regional train, your ticket may be valid for the next train on the same line; check your ticket conditions for details.

In Vaggeryd the minimum connection time is 5 minutes, so a 3-minute connection is still not valid. It would be valid at Vaggaryd Torsbo, but that is a bus stop.

Most traffic search engines respect minimum change times. However, in the past I have seen Google Transit (Google Maps) suggest "unsupported" changes. I don't know if Google still has this bug.

(IMHO, requiring 30, 60, or even 120 minutes at Nässjö is rather crazy, but this is what it says in the database for certain connections.)

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  • FWIW, the long transfer times are not because it actually takes that long to walk from one platform to another, but a method used by the train operators (in Sweden predominantly Snälltåget) to prevent that a somewhat shortish delay will cause a missed connection, which might cascade into a much longer delay at the final destination and the right to compensation or perhaps even the right to meals or accomodation.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Aug 15, 2022 at 15:31
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Seems like a somewhat disingenuous strategy. "Our trains are always late, so please take at least two hours between trains, otherwise it's your own problem." — not exactly customer-friendly and not very much in the spirit of delay compensation rights, but I suppose they get away with it.
    – gerrit
    Aug 15, 2022 at 16:08
  • Of course it is disingenuous, but it is a legal trick to circumvent otherwise legally required liabilites. It might also be related to the fact that many train lines in Sweden have rather infrequent departures, so that in connection with one or more transfers, an originally short delay and a single missed transfer can easily grow into a very long delay at your final destination. If you want to risk a shorter transfer, you can of course buy separate tickets and 'override' the minimum required transfer time, but then you do it at your own risk without any rights to a compensation if it fails.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Aug 15, 2022 at 17:59
  • @gerrit I mean when you exaggerate it, of course it sounds silly. There’s a big difference between a 5 minute slack on timetables vs a 2 hour slack.
    – Tim
    Aug 15, 2022 at 20:38
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    @MichaelTsang You absolutely cannot infer a connection based on timetables without explicit indicators. Timetables are based on stations and routes and only tell you there is a train at xx:xx going to ABC. The fact you are travelling on one ticket is mostly irrelevant in the context of zone-based local transports; it is another matter if you had a ticket with the connection route specified.
    – xngtng
    Aug 16, 2022 at 8:07
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That is not a connection, hence you won't get any compensation.

The timetable shows two lines that run partly in parallell, hence it is useful to have both lines in the same timetable for travellers going on the common part.

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  • The system accepts the earlier 10:06 - 10:12 transfer as a valid connection because the minimum connection time at the station is 5 minutes, and the 10:12 and 14:08 trains actually start the journey at the station, so it actually seems that the trains are timed for connection, making it two-hourly by combinations of four-hourly trains. If the PDF timetable doesn't show connection, how do I read the PDF timetable?
    – Michael Tsang
    Aug 15, 2022 at 22:45
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    @MichaelTsang that timetable don't show connections at all, as I wrote the reason for showing two lines is that they run in parallell for a while
    – Anders
    Aug 15, 2022 at 22:55
  • @MichaelTsang The timetable only shows that there is a train arriving at 14:05 and another train departing 14:08 and not that there is a planned or even realistic connection between those trains. If you had used a trip planner and searched for an itinerary from Värnamo to Jönköping, you would have realized that if you arrive by train in Vaggeryd 14:05, the next feasible connection to Jönköping is the bus 15:00, which is probably the bus you had to take anyway.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Aug 16, 2022 at 6:13

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