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Tour of Scandinavia and Questions about Overnight Trains

I am planning a two-week tour of Scandinavia in late June - early July this year, and I have some questions about travel between Norway, Denmark and Sweden. We are planning to visit Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Bergen; we will be flying into Copenhagen and out of Bergen. I decided that a 3 country rail pass made sense to travel between the countries and do some exploring outside of the city centers (and they were on sale!). I've read a good bit of the Rick Steve's Scandinavia book, and I was under the impression that there were overnight trains between cities in Scandinavia. Specifically, I would like to travel from Copenhagen to Stockholm and from Stockholm to Oslo. However, when I try to look on Eurail or other sites, I don't find any overnight trains. I know they don't have the summer schedules up yet, but I selected similar days of the week and found that the latest departures listed are around 6 PM. Does this change in the summer?

We would like to travel overnight between Copenhagen-Stockholm and Stockholm-Oslo, so that we can save time and money on hotel rooms. Does any one know whether there are overnight train rides between these cities? I think that we can travel from Copenhagen to Malmo (short ride) and then from there take an overnight train to Stockholm. Would that trip be covered by the Eurail pass? I'm not sure how to do the Stockholm to Oslo overnight train, and, if they exist, direct trains would be best.

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! If this question has already asked, I apologize in advance.

Posted by
5846 posts

I don't know if there is a night train from Copenhagen, but this page indicates that there is a night train from Malmö to Stockholm (although not usually on Saturday). It leaves at 22:08. You can easily travel from Copenhagen to Malmö and then switch trains. This link is in Swedish, but you can see the train times where it says "Från Malmö"
https://www.sj.se/sv/om/om-sj/trafik-och-tag/sj-nattag/till-och-fran-malmo.html

I think I recall reading that the night train to Oslo no longer exists, but don't know for sure. Hopefully someone from RS will see this as they may know.

Posted by
5507 posts

Eurail is never the place to research schedules or buy tickets as they are essentially a travel agency that resells tickets.

Train passes also never make financial sense anymore.

Have a look at this advice from the well regarded Man in Seat 61 site. Here he talks you through your overnight options. You will also see that if you purchase from the actual train company, you save a bundle of money;

http://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Copenhagen.htm#Copenhagen-Stockholm

Posted by
971 posts

Copenhagen-Stockholm and Stockholm-Oslo should be bought at www.sj.se. As Laura indicates, it looks like the only night train is from Malmø to Stockholm.
For day trips from Copenhagen (the usual ones are Roskilde, Helsingør and Hillerød) look at www.rejseplanen.dk to plan your journeys. You will have to check with Eurail if these regional trips are covered by the pass. Another options is the Copenhagen card, which also gets you free transport to these destinations, which can be quite expensive.