Bullet Points

 

This blog's going to be a bit different.  This one's more of a list.

(Did some of you sigh with relief?  How dare you).

There are four stations at the very top of the Red line that I'm going to cover in this post.  Mörby Centrum, Danderyds sjukhus, Bergshamra, and Universitetet.  Bergshamra is on a peninsula, with the T-bana skipping under water either side of it, and sat at home in England I really wasn't sure if there was a way to cross that water as a pedestrian.  The road bridges that also crossed them were motorways, and I wasn't confident that I could walk alongside them.  I decided that Bergshamra would have to be a "visit then get on the next train out" station.  

On top of that, Universitetet station is at the centre of a national park, the Norra Djurgården.  Walking south from there to the city was an unknown quantity for me.  I didn't know if that would be a gentle stroll south or a knee-busting hike over mountains - again, sat in front of a computer in Merseyside, I couldn't be sure.  So Universititet would also be a "visit then get on the next train out station".

Then, because it was early on a Saturday morning and I was still half asleep, I went to Mörby Centrum, then went and got the train to Danderyds sjukhus, because in my head I wasn't going to do any walking at all.  It was only when I reached Danderyds sjukhus that I thought "I should've walked here" and, yeah, that's what my planning spreadsheet had on it.

I cocked that bit up basically.  So rather than my thoughts about the bits inbetween the stations, all you've got is my thoughts about the stations.  Sorry/you're welcome* (*delete as appropriate, depending on how bored of hearing about Stockholm you are).

Mörby Centrum

I arrived to find Mörby Centrum wasn't in the best condition.  There's been a shopping centre here since the Sixties and it appeared it was in the middle of one of its periodic rebuilds.  Stepping outside was a mix of concrete, wires and diversions.

Of course, this being Sweden, the shopping centre wasn't actually open at eight in the morning.  In the UK they'd be grabbing people off the train and dragging them up to Starbucks to get them caffeined up for a day of bouncing round the shops.  Over here, nothing was opening until ten, and if you didn't like it, tough.

I wandered out into the public square but it was a mess of concrete barriers and signs telling me just how good Mörby Centrum would be one day so I turned round and walked back down to the platform.  As I said, I should've actually walked out to the next station, but it was all so unpleasant and uninviting I think my brain over rode the logic centre and told me that being on a platform underground would be much nicer.  Also, as I mentioned, it was eight in the morning, and I was on Day Five of clattering round Stockholm.  I was a little bit exhausted.

I like the very Eighties sign for the shopping centre though.

Below ground we're back in the caves and, more particularly, pastel caves.  The artists have gone for pink and white in the main which gives it the slight air of a 1980s bedroom to it.  It really needs a Samantha Fox poster and some Bros playing.

Mörby Centrum wasn't intended to be the end of the line; it was built with overrunning tunnels so that the Red Line could continue on to Täby.  The residents of that town didn't want the T-bana, though, because its arrival would mean they'd lose their own light railway, the Roslagsbanan.  They voted to keep the smaller trains and the Red Line stopped here.

I had plenty of time to explore because on a Saturday morning the trains are extremely infrequent.  I'd got so used to turn up and go over the week that having to actually wait for a train was quite irritating.  Even more irritatingly, SL have implemented a system for partially sighted people so they know which side to get the next train from; a relentless clicking noise to guide them to the right platform.  A lovely gesture that drives you slowly mad as you wait for your train to leave.

Danderyds sjukhus

The station for the Danderyds sick house, I mean hospital, certainly lives up to its name.  It's right underneath the hospital, and the signage on the platform actually points out what exit you need for which department.

I thought the art on the platform walls would be something light and comforting as befits a hospital.  Something reassuring as you turn up with an exploded gall bladder or for your cancer diagnosis.

Nope!  It's isolated figures casting long dramatic shadows.  It's more like an advert for the Samaritans - it can seem like you're alone, but give us a call.

You couldn't have sprung for a few bright colours, SL?  A child playing or a smiling nurse?

Bergshamra

My abiding memory of Bergshamra is not the station itself, or the neat little town centre outside welcoming me to the Royal National City Park, but the pile of bright orange vomit by one of the benches.  Actually it wasn't bright orange, it was more like mango pulp, splattered across the platform, a lovely little reminder of somebody's Friday night.

Don't worry, I didn't take a picture of it.  

This station's best piece of art is the long coloured strip along the platform wall.  It's been painted to slowly shift from one end of the spectrum to the other; simple but effective.

A handy reminder that you don't need to spend millions to make The Art in your station pleasing and distinctive.  Something we could perhaps learn back in the UK.

Universitetet

At Universitetet I actually went for a bit of a wander.  I always like a university campus.  They're lively, exciting places, hopping with youthful enthusiasm and the heady whiff of intellectual stimulation.

Whenever I'm on a campus, I think how much fun it would be to study again, and maybe I should look into doing a course or something.  Then I remember I'm 47.  Going back to university as a mature student is a very different experience.  I remembered those intense, killjoy mature students in my classes who wanted to learn and who didn't show up for lectures stinking of Newky Brown from the night before.  I don't really want to study again, I want to be 20 again, and free of responsibilities and adulthood.

Having depressed myself by thinking about the inevitable march towards death, I walked across to Universitetet's other station, with the same name.  This is on the Roslagsbanan.  That network has constantly had a threat of closure hanging over it.  It operates on a narrow gauge of 891mm, a gauge unique to Sweden, and is the last railway to carry regular services over it (the others have either become museum pieces or converted to regular trains).

The problem has always been: this is undeniably a useful network, but is this really the most efficient way to get people into Stockholm?  Worse, it terminates on the edge of the city centre, in an above ground station.  For years it was treated as the unwanted stepchild of the network, until a few years ago, SL finally decided they'd spend some money on it.  They double tracked most of the route, they rebuilt Universitetet as a proper station with lifts and so on, and they announced they would dig a tunnel under the city centre so that the Roslagsbanan could intersect with the mainline at Odenplan at T-Centralen.  Yes, this will mean yet another layer of tunnelled platforms at Stockholm Central; they really do love digging underground in Sweden.

Preliminary works, however, found various engineering challenges for the tunnels south of Universitetet, which meant the project has been delayed; they're currently finalising a new route for consultation.  It means the new tunnels won't be completed for another decade at least.

The Art at Universitetet is by Françoise Schein, a Belgian artist.  It's based around the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and she's put similar artwork in other metro stations - Concorde in Paris, for example, and Parque in Lisbon.

It doesn't sing for me.  It's nice that she's given you something to read while you wait for your train (though my Guide to the Art in the Stockholm Metro sniffily notes that she's not used any Swedish vowels - no Å, Ä or Ö - which is a bit rude) and of course it is a very important document, but still: it's a bit "is that it?"

I suppose it has the unfortunate position of being on the Stockholm Tunnelbana.  On those other metros, a station decorated in an artistic way is a surprise and different.  Here, it's just another station, and compared with some of the others, it's lacking.

Françoise's design for the emergency exit, though, is fantastic.  She should've done more of that.

Not much left now, folks.

The Power of Three

Britain invented the railways.  We invented their form, their habits, their designs, and the rest of the world largely copied us.  (Of course it helped that at the time we also owned much of the rest of the world so we didn't give them much choice in the matter).  Other European nations looked at our rapidly expanding networks and thought "we'll have some of that... apart from the half a dozen terminii in all your major cities bit.  That seems daft."

So while you're still forced to carry your bags between Birmingham New Street and Moor Street, need a taxi to get from Glasgow Queen Street to Central, and may as well abandon hope if you have to travel between two London stations in a reasonable amount of time, Europe embraced the idea of a single, central station at the heart of their major cities.  Amsterdam Centraal.  Praha hlavní nádraží.  Helsinki.  Milan.  Antwerp.  Huge facilities in the very centre of the city where every bus, tram and metro can connect and spread you out across the region.

Stockholm went with the Central station concept, but has since refined it to make Central perhaps the most Central of all Central stations.  It's not one, but three stations, all on the same site, all Central stations.  You can sort of understand it if you look at this handy map, though be aware that it has (a) been vandalised and (b) looks like something that Professor Heinz Wolff sketched out on a lazy afternoon.

Let's start with the deepest station:

Bottom: Stockholm City

No, it's not called Central, even though it is absolutely Central, and is under Central.  Stay with me.

Stockholm's commuter services used to run into above ground platforms in Stockholm Central itself.  In the 2010s, however, a long tunnel was built under the city centre - a Swedish Crossrail; Crössråil, if you will - to allow services to run from north to south and free up space in the main station.

As you'd expect for a station built in 2017, it's gleaming modernity all the way, with platform edge doors, tasteful uplighting and plenty of art.  This was the first station I saw in Stockholm itself, having got a commuter train from Arlanda airport.  I'm not counting Arlanda Central.  Even though I did this:

(Sidebar: there is a non-stop Arlanda Express train, but as with most Airport Express services, the time saving is minimal and the price is ridiculous.  Take the slow commuter train every time).  

Of course I was impressed.  This was a fantastic introduction to the Swedish public transport network.  And not just because it had pictures of rabbits on the wall:

Heading up the escalator, there's a mezzanine and ticket gate, and then the escalator to the long-distance station.  This was the point where I stopped dead in my tracks and smiled.  

I'm a station nerd.  I'm proud of that.  I love seeing an elaborate, over the top architectural flourish that serves no purpose other than to impress and enhance your day.

It's beautiful.  I love it so much.  I want every railway station in the world to look like this.  And remember, this was the first station I saw in Stockholm.  How could I not love it after that?

Karin Lindh intended that the whole theme was light, with the crinkly roof angling your eyes to the brightly lit escalators, and then suspended white LEDs above the shaft.  It positively glows.  Much like my face as I rose up.

Top: Stockholm Central

I went up the escalators and into Stockholm Central itself, the first station to be built on the site, and Sweden's largest and busiest.  It's been here, in various forms, since 1871, and it is utterly magnificent.  

It's huge and open, so huge that they could cram in some kind of advertising display around the theme of "summer".  The back end, beyond this shed, is where the retail is, an entire mall of shops and eateries.  

That's the bit that's most like a British railway terminal, where the passengers are squeezed past a dozen grubby hands reaching out for their wallets.  It brings me no pleasure to report that there are branches of Caffe Ritazza, Upper Crust and Burger King in this area, along with some more Swedish commuter brands like Bröd and Salt and a Pocket Shop for your reading requirements.  (Of course I had a poke around there.  Of course I came out with another book).  

Let's head back to the main hall, though, because that's what put a smile on my face.  I wandered around it, slightly dazed, tired from my flight but reinvigorated by railway station architecture.  It largely dates from the 1920s, as part of a comprehensive rebuild of the station, and every bit of it is glamour.

The entrance porch has a wonderful roof with chandeliers but is a little underused.  Passengers are moving to e-tickets and pre-booked trains and so the ticket selling areas are shrinking back and back.  They still have to provide information, of course, particularly at such an important hub, but there are fewer people doing it, and more machines.

Outside it's what you want from a terminus: elegant but muscular, dominating the street and drawing your eye.  There's a plaza outside to allow people to stream in and out.

There's also a statue of Nils Ericson, a legendary Swedish engineer who constructed canals and railways throughout his life.  Much of the architecture and routing of Swedish railways is down to his brilliance.

Also he has a very jaunty little coat.

Middle - T-Centralen

Between the sleek and understated 21st century Stockholm City and the mighty steam era Stockholm Central is the Tunnelbana's home, T-Centralen.  Even here, there are clearly two separate generations.  The Red and Green lines pass through cut and cover platforms, built in a trench under the city, and carrying on with the Bathroom Station style, albeit a little more elevated - a sort of posh hotel bathroom rather than the slightly public loo feel of the other 1950s stations.

I'm now going to take a deep breath and a sip of my tea before I settle down to write about the Blue Line platforms.  I don't want to get overwhelmed.

Per Olof Ultvedt wanted to bring calm to what is still the busiest T-Bana station, and so he went with a shade of blue that immediately soothes and enriches.  He painted leaf patterns to bring the outside in and suggest nature.

The effect is stunning.  It's one of those stations that makes me want to grab all the people who are simply there to catch trains and bark, "Why are you rushing?  Don't you see all of this?  Why aren't you taking it in?"

Elsewhere, Per paid tribute to the people who actually built the station.  He wanted to put their signatures on the roof, then decided it would look too much like a graveyard - that patented Swedish gloominess at play there - and so he set up some lights and projected their silhouettes onto the ceiling and walls.  He then painted them in to make them a permanent part of the station.

I like to imagine that today, decades after the Blue Line opened, there are old men bringing their grandkids here, pointing up at one of the silhouettes and saying, "that's me".

T-Centralen is the hub of the network, the point the rest of the T-Bana revolves around, and it's wonderful.  It's been built with love and care and a real consideration for the passenger experience.  It was never confusing and I never got lost.  Actually, slight caveat; I discovered that the entrance closest to my hotel actually took me down to the Blue Line, which meant I had to go up and up again to get to the Red Line platforms where I was headed, but that's me not paying attention.

This is how you build an underground station.  This is what we should aspire to.  This is public transport designed to enrich lives.  We all have to travel; why not make it joyous?

Stockholm City.  Central Station.  T-Centralen.  Three stations.  One station.  Unlimited joy.