A Summer North of the Arctic Circle

Sitting at an outside table at Jokkmokk station and pondering over the last week. Have quite been able to write until now, needed time to process the experience.

Arrived in Gällivare Thursday midday after a quite enjoyable but incredibly long train ride from Helsingborg. 22.5 hours all in all. Checked out the office at the station and tried to figure out what to do next. The day past fairly quickly, although the place is surprisingly quiet. Met Ulrika at the station when the train got in, she had plenty of stories to tell but I could feel the nervousness building about the following day.

Slept for a few hours and got dressed for work. I do really like the uniform, casual but still official looking. Slightly nervous still but less so than expected. Just a few passengers from Gällivare, but in Porjus we picked up 12 musicians taking part in Inlandsbane festival. A colorful bunch they made sure the trip got more interesting. The guiding part went quite well, no Germans on the train so could focus on getting the Swedish and English version working. Can’t do it without the manual but that should hopefully change soon. The day went well, slightly chaotic when changing train in Sorsele to head back up north, lots of passengers (well not really but more than on the trip down) and managed to mess up the food order for Vaikijaur but Maggan sorted it out when we arrived. Exhausted after the first day but feeling quite good about the experience, it was fun!

Second day was mostly good although I messed with seat reservations when we changed direction of the train in Arvidsjaur. Got a call from the office about a complaint on that, but I think that it will be better next time when the routing starts to work properly.

Got  a proper place to sleep on Sunday, so nice with a real bed! Spent most of monday in bed relaxing. On Tuesday Lena lent me her car so I got a good look at the area and got some shopping done.

And yeah, we also had a train derailment on Monday, nothing serious and no one was hurt, trains running again the next day. But Lena had to work on bus for her two shifts. Let’s hope that’s the only time this season!

Today was the start of my other project that I’m doing in my spare time. The plan is to write a new guidebook for Inlandsbanan that’s interesting to read and available in English and German. So headed down south to Porjus with the train. Arrived very early and everything was closed, but after a few hours of walking around the small town I got a guided tour of the old hydro electric power plant. It was the first day for the guide and I were the only customer, she was very nervous but all in all managed quite well. I do know how the first day feels like! There is not much to do in Porjus so walked up to the viewing spot and got a lovely view of the area. It is really beautiful up here, in particularly at the top of a mountain. Could see snow on the mountains at the horizon.

But Porjus is not fun enough for a full day so catched a bus to Jokkmokk where I am now. Been walking around town and checking the place out. Probably need to structure myself more if the guidebook is actually going to happen. But it is a start. Luckily since I started writing it hasn’t begun to rain, a wet laptop is not much fun. The train back to Gällivare is arriving in about half an hour. Life is good.

Early start with a good hotel breakfast and then a quick tour around Mora. Then back on the train, nice to not be on the bus. Stopped in Fågelsjö which is one of our food stops on the line. We take up orders earlier during the trip so that the caterers have time to prepare, and then the travellers pay and pick up their food at the stations. A good way to avoid appalling train food as many companies around the world see fit to serve on trains, although it would be hard to schedule in food stops on a regular train.

But we also got to visit Fågelsjö Gammelgård, which I really enjoyed. Basically a small country manor that upon the building a new house in 1910 the owners left everything as it was an locked the doors and left it. Like a museum but more real, no glass walls or elaborate exhibitions just the real thing. Also the coolest lock I ever seen on food shed, elaborate construction and some real neat thinking. A must see if you ever are in the area.

Got back to Östersund fairly early, nice after some really long days. Some relaxation and then on to socialising with the engine drivers and other staff. Bowling was the concept, and I can’t say that it went very well for me, but it was fun and I had the chance to get to know some of the drivers better. A nice taco buffet and got to hear plenty of great anecdotes, that it is probably wise not to publish.

Fairly late evening, at least in the standard of this week, but amazed how light the evening was. I’m setting myself up for some serious strangeness with the midnight sun during this summer in Gällivare.

-Pär Boman

Finally out on the trains! Early start, had to rush to get to the station but got there in good time. We headed south, first stop Åsarna. I’m not going to work this part of the line but it was nice to see it and to be aware what it is like. Some stops in the middle of the woods to look at blästerugn, enjoyed jumping out of the train in the forest.

End of the line was Mora. The track goes down to Kristinehamn but is in to bad shape to use most of it, so from here on the trip continued by bus. Stopped by a really cool museum in Lesjöfors with random old things from the area and the world in general mixed together in an interesting way, really hard to explain you really have too see it. The all the way down to Kristinehamn and then back to Mora.

Got to practice a bit of guiding with a microphone, think it went quite well but need to work on my phase, in particular in German and English. Stayed in a very nice Hotel in Mora, enjoyed the pool after a long day. And of course a beer afterwards, this time most of my co-workers joined in, and we had a good time. Getting to know them better, and it’s a really nice team. Most of them are new this year, just as I am.

And yeah it was my birthday today.

A long day but some got to try out some cool things. First CPR, useful haven’t done that for quite a few years. Also got to try out how to use defibrillator, which I never done before. General first aid and related information all good and presented in a interesting way. After lunch also fire training, got to use a powder extinguisher, only used other types before. Also got some practical experience of how to use a fire blanket, on a doll, slightly surreal but fun.  Also enjoyed having all the classes in a small yellow in between two tracks.

Some dinner in the maintenance workers lunch room and then back to the conference room for some track safety training. Useful information mixed with entertaining anecdotes.

Headed to Bishops for a beer afterwards, only the people staying at the hotel were strong enough to join. BTW, the hotel is called Älgen, the Moose, and is quite good, even if looks sketchy on the outside.

A few very exciting but also exhausting days have passed. On Sunday evening I took the night train north, for the beginning of my summer long experience. Always found it hard to sleep on the train, even when, as I did this time, have a bed. But at the same time it is somehow soothing to watch the night landscape pass by, as the rails make their noise and the person above quitely snores. Enjoyable in many senses but also not a good way to arrive rested.

Arrived early in Östersund, caught the first glimpse of the Inlandsbanan trains as we entered the station. It look shiny and exciting as it stood there in the early morning light. Decided to splurge on a hotel breakfast while the time passed. Then walked over to the train sheds and met up with some of my new colleagues. As we entered the shed we passed by the trains inside, they looked enormous.

Training week started then. Slight overload of information, all interesting, but we have limited time to cram it all in before the season begins. Endless amounts of paper, but really cool stuff. Got too meet most people in the company and they all seem incredibly nice. But very tired after a long day.

But staying in a hotel with some new nice people, you can’t just go straight to bed, no matter how tired you are. So we went to the hotel Bar, had a beer and good conversation, trying to get to grips with the entire day. And soon some very much needed sleep.

Inlandsbanan – där tid finns.

So after an immense blogging hiatus, I’m back. The main reason I stopped blogging was that it didn’t feel like anything worth writing about was going on. Don’t get me wrong, the past year has been good, but not very exciting. I really enjoyed teaching Home Economics for a year, it was a challenge at times and learnt lots from the experience. But as the term was coming towards an end I felt that a change was desperately needed, simply being back home for too long takes its toll. A nice flat, enough money to get around and friends to hang out with, but no adventure.

Earlier this year I got an email from Joanna Ö, it was a job advert for a train line I had previously talked about. You might not be aware but for a long time trains have been of interest to me, by no means a train geek, I still find them interesting. So an application was written and sent, and quite some time passed. The suddenly I received a phone call from a recruitment agency tasked with evaluating applicants for the job, and had thorough phone interview with them. That raised my hopes and the excitement felt was immense, it sounded perfect for me. Was later invited to a interview in Stockholm and the next week was invited to up Östersund to have an interview with Inlandsbanan AB. Östersund is about 20 hours away from Helsingborg by train, the interview lasted a little more than an hour, but it just kept my excitement growing.

About a week later I received the final phone call, the job was mine, and the company placed me in Gällivare on the northernmost point of the line for the summer. Accepted as soon as possible and will start working in early June. Next week I’m going up to Östersund for a training week and are looking forward to it immensely.

Intend to do fairly regular updates on the blog over the summer and hope that some people are interested in reading it.

Keeping my blog updated seems to be impossible. It is a combination of not much exciting happening and a complete lack of inspiration. From Friday I will be unemployed again as my temp job finishes. Not all that bad since it is time for me to move on to something else. So have applied for a few jobs and more will come in the next few days. Also working on a few business ideas, but nothing is really there yet.

Playing around with an alternative to my blog… check it out:

parboman on 12seconds.tv

Doesn’t seem like I manage to update this properly. Will try to do better as always. Heading over to Scotland for about ten days tomorrow. Finally some time off work. Otherwise things are moving along.

Midsummer was on friday and spent the day at my sisters boat with Carl and Gustav. Afterwards we headed over to my place, made some food and enjoyed ourselves. Simply a superb day. 

Looking into some really cool opportunities for the fall, but will se what actually happens. Lots more later.