Reliability of Sweden Trains?

They are in general pretty reliable, but delays can of course happen. Where have you read the reviews? As you mentioned, people will generally not write a review of a train trip that went according to plan.

Many thanks for the reassurance about the reliability of SJ trains. Here are reviews on TripAdvisor that raised my concern.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g189852-d18844450-Reviews-SJ_Rail-Stockholm.html

And here is another site with no reviews of SJ trains.

Trustpilot, a review site which which I am not familiar. 80% of the reviews were only 1 star.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.sj.se And here is the site

Those sites have around 1500 reviews in total. SJ sold over 20 million tickets in 2023 alone. Even if all those reviews are from 2023 (which they aren't), it means that 0.0075 % of SJ's passengers where so upset about their trip that they had to write a bad review about it.

And some of the reviews are really silly, like the person giving a one star review because the staff wouldn't let them in to the lounge, since he wasn't travelling with SJ.

Looking back at all my train trips in 2024, I think the worst delay I encountered was 5-10 minutes or so. Has there been worse delays? Of course. I've also been delayed by several hours when travelling with SJ, but that is the exception. And I've also suffered horrible delays when flying.

Hello Badger, Thanks so much for this perspective!!! Very reassuring on SJ trains. I will be booking a reservation soon. Best, David

As long as you aren’t trying to catch a plane immediately after your train arrival in Oslo, I would not be concerned about it. I suspect that if you checked the reviews for just about any train operating company in Europe, you’d see similar complaints.

Good luck with the booking! Unless the price difference is huge or the schedule really doesn't work for you I'd recommend you book one the high speed trains and not an Intercity.

The official information from SJ is that 87% of the trains where on time 2024

I only have anecdotal evidence, which is useless. But the SJ train I took from Stockholm to Lund last October was one of the most pleasant train experiences I have had in a long time. Nothing terribly special about it - just good service, a comfortable seat, a nice little cafe, and on-time service as we crossed southern Sweden. I would happily do it again.

https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/swedish-trains-still-delayed-2024-worst-year-for-over-a-decade.

Still better than many national train companies.

Like Laura said; Don't worry unless you are about to catch a plane. Those reviews are in no way representative of what travelling with SJ is like. I have cursed the unreliable sliding price scales over the decades but have only had three serious delays in over twenty years. Last summer i was delayed several hours when a non-trunk line had a power outage. SJ arranged with a bus company to send several vehicles to come to our rescue, but ultimately changed their minds and rerouted our train back the way it had come, arriving at the destination via a trunk line instead, travelling non-stop.

Passengers rights are quite extensive in the EU:

https://www.sj.se/en/about-sj/terms-and-conditions/rights-in-the-event-of-a-delay