Electrification Schemes in Sweden.

For some years the 285 miles stretch of railway linking Stockholm and Gothenburg, in Sweden, has been successfully worked by electricty. Now the Swedish Government Railways are contemplating the conversion from steam to electric working of the Stockholm-Malmo-Traelleborg trunk route of 391 miles, as well as certain branch lines connecting this route with the Stockholm-Gothenburg line. The work will occupy about three years, and, by means of electrification, there is anticipated an annual saving of 120,000 tons of locomotive coal.

The total length of the Swedish electrified lines is about 750 miles. On the Stockholm-Gothenburg electrification, there is employed single-phase current of 16 2-3 periods and 16,000 volts. This arrangement will also apply to the new electrification plans. The Stockholm-Gothenburg route finds employment for ten electric passenger locomotives and forty electric freight locomotives. Each weighs 78 tons, and is of the 1-0-1 type with two gearings—one speed for fast passenger working, and the other for ordinary passenger and freight operation. When employed for passenger movement, speeds up to 45 miles an hour are attained with 500 ton trains.

In Sweden, both rail and road traffic keep to the left, as in Britain, but in other Scandinavian lands traffic keeps to the right. Sweden's near neighbour, Denmark, although only a relatively small land, possesses an efficient system of Government railways which, in recent times, have been extensively modernised. Fast trains are operated on all routes, and on the important route between Copenhagen and Masnedo (the ferry terminal on the trunk line to Germany via Gjedser-Warnemunde), and the Copenhagen-Korsor section, speeds up to 45 miles an hour are attained. Through cars are operated daily between Copenhagen and Berlin, Hamburg and Oslo, and sleeping-cars run each night between the Danish capital and Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo and Stockholm. The vast central passenger terminal (Hovedbanegaard), in Copenhagen, is soon to be electrified.