Sweden deploys vintage trains to battle the snow

The Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) has turned to antique rolling stock to boost resources battling the snow and to clear a stretch of track in southern Sweden, according to a report by Sveriges Television (SVT).

The trains, old DA locomotives normally resident in the Swedish Railway Museum in Gävle in northern Sweden, have been dusted off and put back into service to clear the tracks of snow between Mjölby and Alvesta in southern Sweden.

Furthermore a 100-year-old snowplough is in place alongside the tracks in nearby Nässjö, ready to be called into action if needed.

"These are made of stern stuff which can take the winter and we are very happy to be able to help to keep the railways running," said Henrik Reuterdahl at the museum.

The two locomotives were constructed in the middle of the 1950s and are currently equipped with a heavy duty snowplough in order to perform their task.

The harsh winter will mean that costs for the maintenance of roads and railways will soar.

According to the Transport Administration's preliminary estimates, costs for snow removal from roads will increase by approximately 100 million kronor ($14.63 million) compared to previous winters. The figure covers the whole of 2010 and thus part of last winter.

The administration also notes that the budget overrun has been the most extreme in southern areas of the country.

"It has been a busy Christmas period," said Thomas Anderson at the administration.

The record winter has created a slew of problems for the maintenance of roads and railways with low temperatures combined with heavy snowfalls.

"We have not been able to battle the snow with salt as it has been colder than minus eight degrees Celsius in most parts of the country," said Pär Gustafsson at the administration.

The administration's budget extends over the entire 2010 and thus means that a large proportion of the costs of both this and last winter are in the same budget.

The situation could lead to some savings in maintenance in the summer months with cut backs on clearing verges and holding off on relaying roads as a result.

"But we will not pinch on the winter - it will cost what it costs," Pär Gustafsson said.

Dag Rosander at national rail operator SJ was unwilling to speculate as to how much extra cost the winter has incurred.

"We may be able to see a little further on, on the other side of the new year, how it looks."

He pointed out that SJ had strengthened its travel time warranty which may mean that winter will be somewhat more expensive for the company, although he was hopeful that it may attract more passengers to the railways.

SJ has also improved its rolling stock and set up a special department to take care of passengers hit by delays and cancellations.

Willie appears to be gone but he used to post about light rail and high speed rail projects in the USA which were Obama projects. Useless projects where the train service would never make any money and they are design to funnel huge amounts of money to unions and Obama’s corrupt friends.

Although he was getting nuttier and nuttier near the end, I think WG took a legitimate principle (countries would be wise not to be completely reliant on foreign, especially hostile, entities for essentials) and misapplied it. He wound up convincing himself that running largely empty trains would somehow save oil and reduce reliance on foreign powers. This distorted view came from the romantic attachment some have to trains.

It was really bad when I tried to explain to him why a Hartford to Brattleboro, VT train line would be ludicrous, and he accused me of not understanding the dynamics locally that I knew he was over the edge. I lived the first 35 years of my life in Connecticut (save college), and I know it, I know it really well. Willie doesn't.

Other lines he was drooling over included an ambitious project between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Unlike cars, trains have to be in use in both directions at all hours to be financially viable. I could imagine folks wanting to go from Chattanooga to Atlanta in the AM. Considerably fewer would go from Atlanta to Chattanooga in the AM. The reverse problem would happen in the evening.

Of course, if the line were created, the train could play Glen Miller on the train the whole time, and what could beat that? Well, maybe some strange line that starts out of Penn Station at a quarter to four, goes through Baltimore, and has a ham and egg breakfast served in the dining car the next morning in one of the Carolinas.

So, Willie Green was an unappreciated, but tireless prophet, and he gave as good as he got. In many ways, he was what Democrats used to be when they loved this country, too.

Building railways spurred the development of America and brought lots of new populations further and further West. New railways for coal and steel making helped our economy. But these days it is different. Just about all the proposd light rail projects the Feds are funding will not produce more economic development. They will be non-profitable ghost trains. The only thing they will do is keep union construction guys employed building the rail lines. And where will the railcars be bought from? Bombardier in Quebec? That doesn’t produce American jobs

Willie was living in the past

“What I mean to say is that the same industrial/mechanical smarts the Swedes had building locomotives 60 years ago translates into IT+other hi-tech smarts today you posted about. It’s just a younger generation doing it.”

- I get you. Sorry if it sounded like I failed to understand what you wrote. Never mind.

Anyhow,

“Farmers are always trying to eliminate back breaking labor so they always have an incentive to come with new and better mechanical ideas for planting, growing, harvesting, storing food and cotton.”

- True, but why did Russian farmers still use wooden plows in the beginning of the 20th century? And why was there famine even around 1960 in some parts of the USSR - together with America a World leading nation in space technology and exploration?

Of course, “Communism” is the answer. But not an especially clarifying one.

At university, I briefly studied the fact that USA, at a rather early stage of its national development (around 1860-1880), in fact was far superior to Europe in terms of mechanized agriculture.

Historians all agree this was the case but, naturally, these scholars disagree on the reasons to this situation (like they “ought” to).

To me, it seems plausible that the following factors played major roles:

- The shortage of labor in the agricultural sector of the American economy.

- The immense access to vast areas of virgin fertile soil in the US of that time.

- The enormous demand for agricultural products in relation to the numbers of competitors on the market (both the domestic and export ones).

- The transfer of engineering and agricultural know how to a market characterized by steady growth and the incitements to investment and innovation these circumstances constituted.

- The fact that the domestic market of America after 1865, in sharp contrast to (especially) Germany and France, never was disturbed by warfare (in both direct and indirect manners).

To a large extent, America differed much from Western Europe as well as Russia of those days in these regards.

that time.

Yes but also these vast Midwest grassland areas were flat. Flat land is much better for mechanized agriculture such as this >>>

Farm workers with horse-drawn combine harvesting wheat, Almira, Washington, August 1911

Farms in hilly areas are always smaller than farms in flat areas. Europe had small farms that stayed in families for centuries while the Europeans who streamed into the US MidWest could claim large tracts of land after wresting it from the Indians.

You made five valid points that I did not mean to ignore. It is just the simple obvious fact that our Great MidWest agricultural land is flat,this gets left out. In the photo you see a large team of horses pulling a labor saving combine. This “mechanized agriculture” only works on flat expanses.

Combines used to be very expensive. Less so today but in the past we had combine owners who would follow the grain harvest. The grains and soy would be harvested first in Southern states. Then combine teams moved north as the harvest progressed. These days that fancy equipment is more affordable for an individual farmer.

I did not mention our Scandinavian farmers. You already know that Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas have lots of them. These days (due to marriage) they might be part Norwegian, part Swede and part German. Even some Finns I think. I have the impression that Danish immigration was not high

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