Roslagsbanan - History

History

The present Roslagsbanan was once just the southern part of a large narrow gauge system throughout Roslagen and east Uppland, connecting Stockholm and Uppsala with ports, smaller towns and parts of the countryside and used for both freight and passenger transports.

In 1885 the line from Stockholm East Station (Stockholm) to Rimbo was opened, what is now the longest branch of Roslagsbanan. It was originally built and operated by the private enterprise Stockholm-Rimbo Järnväg (SRJ). Rimbo was a junction on the first railway line between Stockholm and Uppsala (the state owned standard gauge mainline straight from Stockholm C to Uppsala C was not inaugurated until some years later). In 1909 SRJ changed its name to Stockholm–Roslagens Järnvägar (with the same abbreviation) following the take-over of companies running adjacent lines.

Roslagsbanan is one of the oldest electrified railway lines for public transport in Europe: The first Stockholm–Djursholm suburban part, Djursholmsbanan, was electrified in 1892. and this line was at the time drawn further into the centre of Stockholm on a tram track, ending at Engelbrektsplan next to Humlegården, allowing for a short walk to the city centre or to inner city tram lines and buses.

In the beginning of the 20th century and well into the 1950s, Djursholms Ösby, a branch station on Roslagsbanan, was one of the busiest railway stations in Sweden with trainS stopping every three minutes with three different branches dividing from there, transporting people and goods.

In the years following World War II, more and more of Swedish railways were nationalised through Statens Järnvägar (SJ), a fate also shared by Roslagsbanan. In 1969 the Stockholm Landsting seized control over the network Stockholm-Rimbo, which is now referred to as 'Roslagsbanan', from SJ, having since then used it for passenger traffic only, with the public transport company SL managing the railway.

In 1960 the Djursholmsbanan tracks to Engelbrektsplan were closed and these trains also terminated at the East Station. Instead, passengers coming to Stockholm East have an interchange connection to the Stockholm metro through the adjacent Tekniska högskolan metro station since 1973. One of the two Djursholm branches (Eddavägslinjen) was closed by SL in 1976.

When SL took over the railway it had many problems. It was narrow gauge and not connected to the rest of the rail network in any way, it was very slow, buses were generally faster, especially to the areas near the end of line, and it was mostly single-track and had low capacity. Because of this there was a strong political interest to close the railway and replace it with buses and a metro line to Täby. The public opinion was much against this and after a referendum in 1980 the Landsting decided to save Roslagsbanan and invest in new trains and modernize the infrastructure and formed a new company SLJ to run Roslagsbanan. Despite this the northernmost part, Kårsta - Rimbo was closed in 1981, and the plan was to close the part Lindholmen - Kårsta as well, but it was temporarily kept due to the poor roads in the area which would be problematic for bus transport. Even though the roads have been improved the line to Kårsta is still in use today and there are currently no plans to close it. In January 2010 the station "Frescati" was closed to avoid congestion and the station "Universitetet" was moved 500 metres (550 yards) north to better serve Stockholm University.