#Gothenburg Central Station

[outdoorcat6945]

[beardedmrbean]

The 13-year-old boy should have been in school last Thursday, instead of sitting in a police station in central Gothenburg. But police say he fired shots outside the offices of Israeli tech firm Elbit Systems.

“He was basically caught in the act,” said police spokesman August Brandt, who said the shots were being investigated as an “attempted murder and weapons offence”.

Kalleback on the outskirts of Gothenburg is a fairly sleepy residential neighbourhood with upmarket developments, a supermarket and a few offices.

Nobody was hurt and little more is known about why a child might have opened fire on an otherwise quiet Thursday morning, outside an Israeli company that sells defence and homeland security solutions.

But this was no isolated incident. In fact there have been several this year.

Earlier this month, Israel’s embassies were targeted both in Sweden and neighbouring Denmark.

First there was a shooting outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, then two Swedish teenagers aged 16 and 19 were arrested in Copenhagen after hand grenades were detonated near the embassy there.

Nobody was hurt, but Sweden's security service Sapo said immediately that Iran may have had a hand in both. Sapo head of operations Fredrik Hallstrom said Tehran’s involvement was an “objective hypothesis”.

Months ago Sapo accused Iran of recruiting Swedish gang members to carry out attacks on Israeli or Jewish interests.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the allegations as “unfounded and biased” and based on what it labelled misinformation emanating from Israel.

Many of the suspects have been teenagers, and some as young as 13 and 14.

“To understand why we see young Swedish teenagers attacking Israeli companies and embassies we need to first acknowledge that we have had an ongoing gang conflict here in Sweden for a long time,” says Diamant Salihu, an investigative crime journalist with Swedish public service television SVT.

One of Sweden’s most violent criminal gangs, known as Foxtrot, has brought a wave of violence to the streets of Sweden, often involving teenagers tasked with criminal errands ranging from shooting at the door of a rival, to detonating explosives to contract killings.

That spiralled in 2023 when Foxtrot gang leader Rawa Majid entered into a deadly feud with Ismail Abdo, a former friend who had become leader of a rival gang known as Rumba.

When Abdo’s mother was murdered at her home in Uppsala, north of Stockholm, in September last year, it opened a darker, increasingly violent chapter in Sweden’s gang wars.

A pair who were 15 and 19 at the time were found to have carried out the murder.

Majid fled abroad facing an international arrest warrant, an Interpol red notice and a growing list of enemies.

Born in Iran to Kurdish Iraqi parents, he had moved as a child to Sweden with his family.

He left Sweden for Turkey in 2018 then moved to Iran last year.

Israeli’s Mossad intelligence agency alleged that Majid had been working with Iran for months. It has blamed both his and Abdo’s gangs for the recent attacks.

When counter-intelligence chief Daniel Stenling said Sapo “can now confirm that criminal networks in Sweden are proxies that Iran uses,” Iran summoned Sweden’s highest diplomat in Tehran in protest.

Sweden has also sought the arrest of Majid’s rival, Ismail Abdo, who was arrested in Turkey last May but reportedly released on bail.

Journalist Diamant Salihu says Tehran has sought to persuade the gang to “commit crimes for the regime,” although Abdo’s gang has denied involvement with Iran.

While the gangs themselves may have been put under pressure by a foreign power, that cannot be the case for the teenagers who have become caught up in the wider Swedish problem of gang crime.

An estimated 14,000 people in Sweden are caught up in criminal gangs, according to a police report from this year, and a further 48,000 people are said to be connected to them.

“Today's 13- and 14-year-olds who commit these grotesque offences were three or four years old 10 years ago,” conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a televised debate of party leaders on public TV last weekend.

The debate turned into a blame game between the centre-right coalition currently in power and their predecessors on the centre left.

Social Democrat former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson called for a “completely new approach” but Kristersson said “a very large extent of this is a problem linked to poor integration; and the integration problem is built on too high immigration”.

A disproportionate amount of gang members are men from immigrant backgrounds, but this has shifted, to the extent that Diamant Salihu says young people and adults from ethnic Swedish backgrounds are increasingly becoming involved.

Criminology specialist David Sausdal of Lund University, in the south of Sweden, says it has become increasingly difficult to monitor networks as they have become fragmented online, dragging people into a “gang gig-economy”.

"The people involved in it are just hired guns, paid for services. They deliver a pizza or a hand grenade as good as they can.

“They're not super talented at it, they’re not motivated by inner hate or conflict as such. They're just doing a job.”

It is that kind of change in Swedish society that is worrying police and politicians alike.

Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer has spoken of three parallel threats to Sweden’s security – terror, state actors and organised crime.

But the latest gang attacks, in David Sausdal’s words, go against conventional understanding of what has previously driven serious crime.

[se-mats]

Gothenburg central train station, Sweden

[korpglugg]

at a ??bistro in gothenburg central station i bought a focaccia with avocado tomato rocket red onion and basil mayo and it was, as a wise man once said, fucking bomb ass delicious

[jjgacutno]

Cities and Tenacities

Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Isaiah 40:26 (ESV) [1]

City life is what I have known since childhood. I couldn’t think for a moment of not living in the city. Maybe when I’m older, but not anytime soon. This makes me witness the change in our cities in Metro Manila, for better or for worse, and try to compare it with the other cities abroad. The need for more livable cities is becoming more apparent given the rise in urbanization. These sustainable cities are modeled in some parts of the world, mostly in developed countries. This means that most developing countries still are playing catch up. Hence, tenacities at all fronts are needed to build cities that are livable, sustainable, and progressive all over the world.

The United Nations SDG 11 aims for sustainable cities and communities by making them inclusive, resilient, and safe among many things; In its progress report, the UN cited that over 4 billion people live in urban places and that by mid-century, at least 70 percent of the global population will be living in cities; Even with this mobility, many cities are unable to develop their infrastructure, housing, and other necessary services leading to more slums created in the process, where 85% of people living in slums are concentrated in Central and Southern Asia, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa; Other than this, air pollution and energy consumption are some of the most pressing issues cities face[2]. In a report published by the World Bank titled Thriving: Making Cities Green, Resilient, and Inclusive in a Changing Climate, a framework that assesses city development is introduced and proposes development pathways and the interlinked phenomena of climate change, agglomeration economies, and urban growth stresses; It captures how policy instruments (i.e., information, incentives, insurance, integration, and investments) can address those phenomena to achieve the intended development pathways[3]. Knowing the problem and the solution framework we can use is the first tenacity at our disposal.

Urbanization builds doors of opportunities for socio-economic progress and sustainability yet continues to exert challenges in resource allocation like energy, and also infrastructure; According to the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), urban growth will happen in Asia and Africa in the next 20 years; Through its Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development (ISID) mandate, UNIDO aims to promote city science and sustainability technologies with its expansive project portfolio globally, and through this, there were several case studies which can be considered as success stories: There is an initiative in Senegal where the urban strategy places focus on resilience and the move towards renewable energy, addressing informal settlements, and land-use governance; In India, UNIDO aims to tackle urban governance and emissions management given that in 2030 there will be about 590 million people living in urban areas; In China, a regulatory framework for the use of New Energy Vehicle (NEV) technologies was established to facilitate the integration and adoption in cities[4]. Understanding where the concentration of urbanization will be and the proven case studies thus far help us prepare and are our second tenacity.

In the recent Global Destination Sustainability Index, the top ten cities[5] are all in Europe and most are Nordic countries, with Gothenburg, Sweden in the top spot, followed by Oslo, Norway; For Gothenburg, it is about the commitment of the city for people to live sustainably every day; for instance, more and more charging stations are installed encouraging residents to adopt electric vehicles. Moreover, the Gothenburg Green City Zone is a major city project that aims to adopt green transportation options for it to become net-zero by 2030; The city’s airport is also considered to have the highest Airport Carbon Accreditation certification[6]. While most cities in Europe are considered sustainable, some cities are consistently listed among the worst. According to Mercer’s Quality of Living Index, cities like Harare (Zimbabwe), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Tripoli (Libya), Lagos (Nigeria), and Damascus (Syria) are among those at the bottom of the list[7]. This is corroborated by the recent Global Liveability Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) where the same cities are part of the top 10 worst cities to live in the world[8]. Measuring the gaps between the best and worst cities in the areas of livability and sustainability creates a focus on where to address the problems and allocate funding—this is our third tenacity.

When you want to measure how advanced a society is, you look at its cities. Our world can be seen as divided in many ways but for me, the most exigent one is the developed and developing country classification—we saw this in the indices and realities of cities today, which is why the tenacities I have pointed out are deeply needed so everyone, and I mean everyone, can experience a city or cities in their country they can opt to live in and be proud of.

[1] English Standard Version Bible. (2001). Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+40%3A26&version=ESV

[2] Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. (n.d.). United Nations. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/

[3]Mukim, M., & Roberts, M. (2023). Thriving: Making Cities Green, Resilient, and Inclusive in a Changing Climate. World Bank Group. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstreams/0a323ecc-c5ad-46f0-884b-fe3be48e4b63/download

[4] Sustainable Cities: Hubs of Innovation, Low Carbon Industrialization and Climate Action. (2016, June). United Nations Internation Development Organization (UNIDO). https://www.unido.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/CITIES_22.06.2016_WEB_0.PDF

[5]Ruggeri, A. (2024, April 2). Five standout cities making the world a better place. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240402-five-standout-cities-making-the-world-a-better-place

[6] Puckett, J. (2023, November 6). These 20 Cities Were Just Named the Most Sustainable. Conde Nast Traveler. https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/most-sustainable-cities-in-the-world

[7] Martin, W. (2018, April 20). The 23 major cities with the worst quality of life in the world. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/worst-cities-in-the-world-to-live-2018-4

[8]Fernandez, C. (2022, August 7). These are the top 10 best and worst places to live in the world—and you won’t find the U.S. on either list. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/07/global-liveability-index-2022-best-and-worst-places-to-live.html

[feijoaaas]

i wanna add from sweden’s second largest city, gothenburg, that here as well the arena is smack in the center.

notice the central train station at the top of the picture which receives both trains and buses (not including local buses although they of course pass by there as well) that’s a five minute walk from the stadium which seats 75,000 for a concert and 40,000 for a sporting event. meaning if you’re coming in from another town for an event and don’t have luggage to drop off you can just walk to the arena in five mins

also notice the slightly smaller more rectangular arena above, that’s the older football arena and when they realised they had to make a new and bigger one they made them neighbours. and the smaller arena has been rebuilt and now serves as a football arena

[alexbkrieger13]

"Not giving them the same chance to sell tickets (larger fanbase in Stockholm area)"

Not accurate. The national team is liked in all parts of Sweden and not just by people living in the Stockholm area. It's in fact easier for out of town fans to get to Gamla Ullevi than to get to Friends in Solna located outside of Stockholm.

In Gothenburg the arena is a 10 min walk from the train station located in the central parts and you can see the nearby player hotel the national team always stay at. In Stockholm you first have to travel 20-40 minutes one way by subway or bus from the train station to reach Solna to begin with. Meaning you have to buy a card to travel, find the right subway train or bus.

I find it interesting what Domanski Lyfors say they don't sell out Gamla Ullevi every game. Make of it what you want.

i mean the location isn't the easy to get to and the fact previous they might have gotten 1 blockbuster game a year meant the rest of the time selling it out was automatically gonna be more difficult

[thepercy6andtheradicalsabbatical]

Malmö to Oslo

Matt and Becca did a short morning park shuffle just to move a bit before a big train day, then we all packed, scarfed breakfast and walked back to Malmö triangelen train station where we caught a train which usually would go to Gothenburg but stopped early in Molndal due to construction. Due to the construction they were also running less trains than usual so our train turned out a bit crowded, but we ended up all getting seats after one stop. Then after the aisles got super crowded again after a few more stops, we opted to crowd all 6 of us into a 4 person berth to give others some seats. This was a reasonably comfortable, if a bit cramped, way to make it to Molndal. There we caught a rail replacement bus to Gotherburg central station, which went fairly smoothly all things considered with new busses pulling up to be loaded every few minutes, eventually fitting everyone who had been on the train on busses. The plus side of driving through town on a bus was we got to take in a bit of the excitement of the Gothia cup, the large international youth soccer tournament which had ended the day before (and which Becca played in back in the day!). There were many teams walking around in the matching kits, some with country flags as well, as well as big banners up around town about the tournament.

The bus dropped us at Gothenburg central station where we boarded the next train to Oslo. The Gothenburg to Oslo train was slightly less full, though we still ended up with only sideways facing fold down straight back chairs (which were not too comfortable to Matt/Becca’s elderly lumbar regions). The stop names were exciting, including Ed, Moss and Ski! Matt happened to be wearing his Ski shirt on the day so convinced Emily to quickly run off the train with him at Ski and snap a pic with the sign then running back on before the train departed. In Oslo, we found Nali Lady waiting for us in the train station and excited hugs were exchanged along with overlapping child chatter similar to our other European grandparent encounters. It had been raining hard earlier in the day but the rain stopped just before our arrival and we explored a bit of a nearby playground and looked at the Oslo Opera House before walking to our hotel near the royal palace. En route, Nali Lady filled us in on things she’d learned about some sights on her Nobel peace prize tour and opera house tours earlier in the day. We arrived at hotel Thon and dropped bags in our 2 rooms. There was enough "discussion" about who was sleeping where that dad eventually had to make an executive decision that boys would be with Matt/Becca and girls with Nali lady for the night, then swap the following night. That settled, we set out to explore restaurant options in the Akker Brygge area. After Matt’s initial option proved to be too fancy for kids and too expensive for all our tastes we found a nearby sushi/ramen restaurant (Yokoso) that turned out to be very tasty! We then had very tasty gelato at Paradis, with the only issue being all 4 of our American credit cards being rejected (Matt eventually sorted out that it worked if we used apple pay on our phone). We then strolled back to our hotel and headed to bed. Matt regretted his earlier executive decision given Oli decided this would be his night to stay up until 11:30 PM instead of going to bed easily like he had been for most of the trip (maybe thanks to an extended train nap earlier in the day?).

[maegandelacruz]

Göteborg

A quick day trip to the second biggest city of Sweden!

First photo is in the Haga District, basically Gothenburg’s Old Town. (rip my camera leash)

Second and fourth photo is in the Botanical Garden located nearby the Central Station. Not a plant person, but I was in awe with all the life they created through climate-control!

Third photo: The Gothenburg Fish Market! It was even described as the “Fish Cathedral” which I think is appropriate to how the building looks.

[archdl]

Gothenburg Central Station - Designed by @dorte_mandrup Visualization by @aesthetica_studio Team: @navjord_arkitektur , @arupgroup , @gottliebpaludanarchitects , and ELU konsult. "To move through the halls of Gothenburg Central Station is to travel through 200 years of history with the vault as a reoccuring architectural element. When presented with the task of creating a new station building to the north, we envisioned a natural continuation of the journey through the arched halls - a symphony of vaults, orchestrating the changing rythm of space and light." . ⭕ What do you think about this design and visualization? 🔻Tag your Architect Friends! . ❌Turn ON Post Notifications to see new Contents.❗ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Follow @archdlofficial for more! 🖤 Tag #archdl or DM your works for Featuring! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #architecture #archviz #render #allofrenders #archigram #instarender #cgi #archihub #architonic #architectureonpaper #architecturestudent #thebna #itscritday #rendering #showitbetter #instaarch #dezeen #illustrarch #next_top_architects #wisearchi #architectureideas #architecture_hunter #gothenburg https://www.instagram.com/p/CoEMRn9McVf/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[theworldthroughmycamerassc]

Centralstationen - Gothenburg, Sweden

[squke]

Gothenburg central station

Shot on 21 March 2019

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

What happened in Gothenburg, Sweden on July 29th 1965? A tale of three strange occurrences in Swedish criminal history.

It's a cold and rainy day in Gothenburg, Sweden, in July 1965. The friends Jan-Olof "Janne" Dahlsjö (21), Gay Roger Karlsson (22), and Kjell-Åke Johansson (16) are preparing for a camping trip to Åsa, approximately 45 kilometers south of Gothenburg. They are seen at a cafe in Gothenburg, before they get into a car, a midnight blue Volvo PV 444, and drive away, never to be seen again. This is commonly known in Sweden as "Dahlsjöfallet" ("The Dahlsjö Case").

Janne Dahlsjö was working for a maintenance company, and he lived in Haga, Gothenburg with his mother and his two younger brothers. He most likely left his home for the last time on the 28th of July. He left without his passport or seafarer's discharge book, and he also had a salary that he never went to pick up. He was very close friends with Gay Roger Karlsson. He was the owner of the Volvo PV that they disappeared in, despite not having a drivers license. Prior to the disappearance he had been talking about making a camping trip in Åsa.

Gay Roger Karlsson lived in a run down apartment block in Gothenburg, and had before the disappearance been having some trouble with the law. The same summer of 1965 he had been arrested for drunk driving and burglary. One of the last sightings of him was on the 28th or the 29th of July when he was helping a truck driver out on the street while he was visiting the Swedish Public Employment Service in central Gothenburg.

Kjell-Åke Johansson had despite his young age just become a father, and was at the time working for a company making surface treatments. His father was working for the same company. He had just a couple weeks prior to the disappearance gotten arrested for drunkenness at public place. The last known sighting of him by his family was made by his sister on the 27th or 28th of July. Just like Janne Dahlsjö, he had been speaking of going camping in Åsa the upcoming days.

Now, these three friends were not the only ones who disappeared in Gothenburg on that very day in 1965.

In Torekov, Scania, Sweden a young man named Hübner "Hymme" Lundqvist (18) leaves his parents summer home to travel to an art school north of Gothenburg. Whether he's taking the train or is hitchhiking is not known, but what is known is that he made it to Gothenburg. On the 29th of July he sends a post card from Gothenburg central station (which is known by information on the stamps on the card), telling his parents not to be worried about him. This is the last known trace of him.

Hymme Lundqvist was the son of the (in Sweden) quite famous artist Evert Lundqvist (1904-1994). They lived in the affluent area of Drottningholm, outside of Stockholm, being next-door neighbors with the castle where the King and the Queen of Sweden today live. Hymme was a man who was popular among the girls at his other school, but had been suffering from depression which he self medicated with alcohol and psychotropic drugs.

While not so much was written in the newspapers at the time about the three boys of the Dahlsjö case, the disappearance of Hymme Lundqvist was given more attention at the time. Maybe because of his family's socio-economic status.

However, these disappearances are still not the only strange things to happen in Gothenburg on this rainy day.

At 14:13 two armed Hungarian robbers storm Skandinaviska Banken ("The Scandinavian Bank"), a robbery that also will go down in history for it's unique circumstances. During the attempt there is an open and public freak-out causing one of the robbers to accidentally shoot himself in the leg. The robbers leave the bank with only a very small sum in cash, and run down to the nearby river where a third accomplice is hiding with oxygen cylinders. The escape plan was apparently to dive and swim down the river, and then leave in a boat waiting for them some distance away. Under the normal clothes the robbers wore wet suits. The escape failed however, as the public freak-out continued with people following them and throwing stones at them. They were eventually arrested, and convicted for the robbery. The robbery has gone down in Swedish crime history as "Grodmansrånet" (The Frog Man Robbery).

[mattiasdrawings]

Sketchbook drawing from a day at the Central Station in Gothenburg. People and spaces.

More work, projects, zines ---> www.mattiasg.se

[rabbitcruiser]

Hudiksvall, Sweden (No. 10)

Adolf Wilhelm Edelsvärd (28 June 1824 – 15 October 1919) was a Swedish architect, engineer and military officer. 

Edelsvärd was born at Östersund in Jämtland, Sweden. His father, Fredrik Wilhelm Edelsvärd, was a military officer and engineer. He studied civil architecture, both in Sweden and in England. He was promoted to lieutenant in the Dalarna Regiment in 1844. He served as head architect for the Swedish National Railways (Statens Järnvägar) from 1855–1895.

His designs included the Gothenburg Central Station (1856), Norrköping Central station (1865), Uppsala Central station (1865), Stockholm Central Station (1869) and Malmö Central station (1890). He also designed the exhibition hall in Kungsträdgården for the General Industrial Exposition of Stockholm (1866).

Source: Wikipedia

[amyonrails]

Back from Sweden to Germany

As the journey to Sweden was certainly not what I initially planned, I decided to write about my journey back to Berlin as well, as that turned out to be a quite different sort of adventure.

To make it through the 13 hour journey and arrive in Berlin with enough time to get dinner, I decided to take the 6:35 train from Gothenburg down to Malmö. I was delighted to find that Gothenburg central station is lit up beautifully during the night and even while it was pretty dark in the early morning the station felt bright and inviting on the inside.

[Gothenburg central station lit up in warm colors in the early morning hours; a few people walk towards it]

Just like when I arrived a week earlier the SJ high speed train departed right on time and provided a very comfortable trip and even though it was cloudy and rainy the view was certainly enjoyable.

[green and calm countryside zips by while gray rainclouds hang in the sky]

I also must remark on how wide the Swedish trains are. The rail is set up to leave a lot more space to the sides (they have a wide loading gauge) and thus even in a 2 by 2 open saloon it does not feel cramped at all. The walkway in the center is wide enough to comfortably carry luggage, the seats have normal width and there is still space for a small nook with a table next to the window, where you can place small items or a bag.

[some empty train seats in a Swedish X55 train attempting to show how wide these are]

When I was in Malmö the first time I didn’t have the time to really take in the station, which turns out to be quite nice. It looks clean and is large enough that even on a busy Monday it did not feel uncomfortably crowded. While the upper platforms and concourse are bright from sunlight and lighting, the underground platforms are a bit darker, but still kept in very good shape and look modern.

[the upper platforms at Malmö central station; the hall is pleasant and bright and there is a different train sitting on each platform; pretty iron works holds up the roof of the hall]

[a view along some of the lower platforms at Malmö central station; the modern architecture with simpler shapes and more artificial lighting form a noticeable contrast to the platforms above]

An Öresundtåg then took me over to Copenhagen. Despite the check by the Danish border police again, that trip was pretty quick and comfortable. I decided to sit in a section specifically built for bikes, strollers, wheelchairs and large luggage, which is a very handy thing for such a regional train which also stops at the airport.

Copenhagen central station really surprised me. The current station was opened in 1911 and looked a lot larger to me than it seems to be with six platforms. The hall was just so spacious that it felt comfortable even on a busy day.

[standing on a bridge over the six platforms of Copenhagen central station looking down on some waiting trains; the large hall hides some parts of the platforms]

If I had had more time, I would have loved to explore the building, as the hall already looked imposing with it’s steel roof with ceiling windows at the apex. Even with the gray weather it was so bright as if there was no roof at all.

[a look up at the ceiling of the train hall; the roof is held up again by red and gray painted metal works and large windows let in plenty of light; even without lit electrical lighting one can easily see]

But after a bit of waiting it was time to board my Intercity train to Hamburg. That part of the journey turned out to be a slight slog in fact. Longer sections of the 6 hour long way to Hamburg were spent at only moderate speeds. But on the other hand I got to see the crossing of the Kiel canal in daylight this time and it was really interesting watching the train snake up the Rendsburg loop to get to the altitude necessary to cross a canal built for ocean freighters and cruise ships.

[a view down from the Rendburg loop onto single family houses of the town of Rendsburg which are encircled by the loop itself; in the distance one can see the bridge over the Kiel canal]

The train was quite packed, but the seats were comfortable so I was perfectly happy just spending the time by myself and watching the scenery. Be aware that there was no on board bistro even on a trip that long. The crew came through with a few snacks for purchase, but it’s probably best to bring a few supplies that will last you yourself. This might also be an exception with the pandemic still going on, so a bistro service may be available in the future again.

As the Danish train crossed into Germany there was no loco change this time. Instead it just switched to diesel power and carried on for the last 2 hours. There were no border checks, but my ticket got checked again by the German staff, which was completely fine.

With about 15 minutes delay the train then pulled into Hamburg central station, which I had previously only seen little of during my journey to Sweden. In the afternoon daylight I realized how large and impressive the main hall is. Next time I pass through this station I will try to spend more time on the concourse and watch the trains and crowds below. But that day I was already pretty tired so I opted to have a sit for about an hour.

During that time I noticed how very busy the platforms are. While I was waiting about 4 ICEs and one IC pulled up, unloaded passengers, took on other passengers and then got on their way again on the platform where I was sitting alone. It was mesmerizing to watch. Meanwhile there were regional trains constantly waiting for departure or currently departing on the platform I had my back to. No wonder they are planning to expand the station if this is just what a normal Monday looks like.

[a view down onto the platforms of Hamburg central station in the huge hall the people down below look tiny]

When my train pulled in I was worried about getting a seat, as the platform had been very full, but that was absolutely no issue in the end and there were plenty of seats free for all of the journey to Berlin. Even though the train barely went at 200 km/h for some time due to larger track work, the two and a half hour journey was quite pleasant again. It was a quiet trip through rural Germany with lots of fields and forests to look at and only two short stops along the way.

At around 20:00 after 13 hours on trains and in stations I had arrived back in Berlin. I decided to hop off at Spandau which is a smaller station in the west of the city to take public transport back to my place. Tired and happy but also a bit sad that my adventure had come to an end I got back home.

In conclusion

Covering this distance during the day was more interesting as I got to see some wonderful sights along the track, but it did get a bit tiring. I am glad night train connections up to Sweden exist and are getting extended, so you can use this travel time to get some sleep and spend the day visiting wonderful places.