{"id":12129,"date":"2015-08-13T02:18:43","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T06:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=12129"},"modified":"2015-08-13T07:17:32","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T11:17:32","slug":"to-the-station-swedish-hotspot-lulea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/to-the-station-swedish-hotspot-lulea\/","title":{"rendered":"To the Station! Swedish Hotspot; Lule\u00e5."},"content":{"rendered":"

This northern town is a port city on the Gulf of Bothnia where iron ore from mines north of the Arctic Circle is trans-loaded to ships. There\u2019s a traditional passenger station that serves sleeping car trains that originate here for Stockholm and points south;\u00a0a coach yard and sidings.<\/p>\n

Markku Pulkkinen, Matti M\u00e4ntyvaara, Asko R\u00e4s\u00e4nen and I arrived in early afternoon. We had lunch in the station restaurant and observed the action.<\/p>\n

The combination of low-level platforms, ground-level switching activities to make up trains, and conventional locomotive hauled consists made for some proper old-school railroading! And that\u2019s just the way we like it. Only the Kiruna-Narvik service appeared to be provided by a modern wedge-shaped electric multiple unit.<\/p>\n

\"X-T1<\/a>
X-T1 panoramic composite of the second Stockholm sleeper at Lule\u00e5.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"X-T1<\/a>
X-T1 photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lule\u00e5<\/a>
Lule\u00e5 is old school; traditional station building with restaurant, low level platforms, plus loco-hauled sleeping car trains with long consists of bogie carriages. All good. Long may it last.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lumix<\/a>
Lumix LX7 photo of a sleeping car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Since<\/a>
Since my visit in 2002, the local passenger service has been ‘improved’. (The improvement is the wedge-shaped EMU at left.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An<\/a>
An empty iron train led by IORE electrics (the most powerful on the planet) rolls through the station on its way north.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The low northern sun provided some great light for photographs, and I made the most of our visit working with my FujiFilm X-T1 and Lumix LX7 to make digital photos.<\/p>\n

I was bemused when a young British girl complained to her father when he went to make a photo of the Rc6 electric on a sleeping car train, \u2018Daddy, don\u2019t do that! Why do you make a photo of the train?\u2019 Surely this child needs to be sent to camp for re-education! I blame the internet and\/or television.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A track-level view of a Stockholm sleeper at Lule\u00e5. My FujiFilm X-T1’s flip down screen and heads-up display with level makes it easy to take low angle photos of trains.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"It's<\/a>
It’s a long way from Lule\u00e5 to Stockholm by train.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A second empty ore train rolls through Lule\u00e5. These big modern Bombardier-built electrics replaced the old Dm3 siderodders, but I’ll forgive them for that\u2014they’re still pretty impressive!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An<\/a>
An Rc6 works the coach yard as the empty ore train heads northward to beyond the Arctic Circle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Modern<\/a>
Modern high-capacity ore wagons are a contrast with the old six-wheel jennies from a century ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One of the classics is on display near the station. Lule\u00e5 respects its heritage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tracking the Light posts daily!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This northern town is a port city on the Gulf of Bothnia where iron ore from mines north of the Arctic Circle is trans-loaded to ships. There\u2019s a traditional passenger station that serves sleeping car trains that originate here for Stockholm and points south;\u00a0a coach yard and sidings. Markku Pulkkinen, Matti M\u00e4ntyvaara, Asko R\u00e4s\u00e4nen and … Continue reading To the Station! Swedish Hotspot; Lule\u00e5.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[3786,4537,7535,2884,2879,1364,2883,2858,952],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Railway_station_Lulea_P1290517MOD1.jpg?fit=999%2C667","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-39D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12129"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12129"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12153,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12129\/revisions\/12153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}