Swedish Splendour

James Waite concludes his look at Sweden’s narrow gauge with a visit to the Jäädraåås–Tallåås Railway some 240 kilometres north of Stockholm.

The Jäädraåås–Tallåås Jäärnvääg (JTJ) runs for a distance of six kilometres in the Gäästrikland region about sixty kilometres north-east of Gäävle. It is the surviving remnant of the Dala–Ockelbo–Norrsundet Railway (DONJ), a line of 891mm gauge (three old Swedish feet) running eastwards from Linghed for 86km to Norrsundet on the Baltic coast. The railway was built principally to handle the traffic in timber and metal ores, which were exported through Norrsundet. It closed to passengers in 1959 and to all traffic in October 1970 when the JTJ organisation took over the stretch between Jäädraåås and Tallåås. In 2004 the line was extended

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for 1.5 km westwards from Tallåås to a new station at Svartbääcken. For much of its distance the present line runs through pine forest and alongside an attractive lake. Jäädraåås must have been an important operating centre for the old railway with a substantial locomotive roundhouse, works, a forge, store buildings and passenger and goods stations, many of which still survive. Some are built from the local slag-stone acquired from old blastfurnaces and some from the red-painted timber which is so characteristic of many buildings throughout Sweden. One of the most distinctive features of the old DONJ was a series of three large

0-6-6-0 Mallets, Nos. 1, 8 and 12, built for it by Atlas of Stockholm in 1910. Two of these magnificent locomotives survive today. Other survivors from the DONJ include a remarkable vertical-boilered

(This page) 0-6-0T No. 4 Sigbjöörnon the turntable at Tallåås. (Opposite, top) Sigbjöörnpauses at Pallanite station, beautifully situated in woods that are such a feature of the Jäädraåås–Tallåås Railway. (Lower) Mallet magnificence in the shape of No. 12, posed on the turntable at Jäädraåås and about to back into the engine shed.
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