Just two years ago, the Swedish West Dalarna Line (Västerdalsbanan) made the news thanks to an expected surge in rail freight transportation. The prominent Fiskarheden sawmill at Malungsfors wanted to triple its rail transport at the time. However, times change, and interoperability now stands in the way. Fiskarheden is turning back to trucks.
The return to trucks is particularly painful because the West Dalarna Line is a freight-only railway. The line has not managed to offer an attractive enough service. Fiskarheden is now changing course by going back to the road.
In early 2025, a year after Fiskarheden’s planned tripling of rail transportation, the company started voicing major issues. “The signalling system is so lousy that there are hardly any operators who can drive there”, Joakim Limberg, CEO of Fiskarheden, told Swedish news platform SVT at the time.
40% of all freight trains to Malungsfors, the site of the sawmill, were delayed by at least an hour in 2024. Around 10% of the trains were cancelled. To make matters worse, the railway was also badly maintained.
A unique signalling system
The West Dalarna Line runs on the ERTMS Regional signalling system – introduced as a trial some 15 years ago. Infrastructure manager Trafikverket decided not to continue with the system, making the railway the only one in Sweden that uses ERTMS Regional. As a result, there are very few locomotives that can operate on the route. It is not fully interoperable with the mainline rail network, which is a hard limit to capacity on the railway.
Representatives of Fiskarheden told SVT in 2025 that it costs at least 30-50% more to use rail on the West Dalarna Line than on other routes. Rail for Fiskarheden has become a “huge competitive disadvantage”.
There is good news and bad news for rail freight on the West Dalarna Line. The good news is that the signalling system will be replaced. This should improve capacity and make especially equipped locomotives no longer necessary. The bad news is that Trafikverket postponed the replacement from 2026 to 2030.
For Fiskarheden, that is not fast enough. The company recognises the importance of sustainability, but the freight-only railway has proven to be too unattractive to actual freight operations.
Sweden is expecting Trafikverket to decide on possible resources for a new signalling in spring.