About this journey

Gothenburg Central station, which opened on 4 October 1858, is the oldest railway station in Sweden still in use. Designed by architect Adolf Wilhelm Edelsvärd on land previously occupied by a prison, the building was constructed between 1856 and 1857, and its current interior — wood pillars, a glass ceiling, a limestone floor — reflects a 1923 redesign by SJ architect Folke Zettervall. With 16 platform tracks and trains departing on five railway lines, the station handles around 27 million passengers per year, ranking as Sweden's second-busiest after Stockholm Central.

From Gothenburg Central, the X52-3 Bombardier Regina heads north on the Bohus Line, the route connecting the city to Uddevalla and ultimately to Strömstad near the Norwegian border. The station carries a longer history too: during the 19th and early 20th century, around one million Swedish emigrants passed through it on their way to the harbour and onward to America. That departure point is still being reshaped — a new underground station, Centralen, is under construction as part of the West Link tunnel and is expected to open in 2026. The journey from Gothenburg to Strömstad moves between that layered urban history and the quieter coastal character of the Swedish west, arriving at a town that stands at the edge of Scandinavia.