Hultsfred–Västerviks Järnväg (HWJ)

Updated: August 2026 – Eight hundred and ninety-one millimetres. That figure sounds arbitrary, but it’s the key to this railway: it equals three Swedish feet and was never seriously used outside Sweden. The Hultsfred–Västerviks Järnväg runs the longest surviving line of this gauge – about 71 kilometres through the forests and lakes of Småland.

Vehicles you'll only find here

891mm runs nowhere else. Record what you see while you're standing in front of it.

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A gauge nobody else built

Narrow-gauge railways emerged wherever standard gauge was too expensive. Which measurement was chosen for that, however, was rarely coordinated: Eastern Europe settled on 750mm, Austria on 760mm, central Europe largely on 1000mm – and southern Sweden on 891mm.

This decision still has consequences today. Vehicles of this gauge can neither be sold, nor swapped, nor used anywhere else; spare parts are made in-house or not at all. Anyone preserving an 891mm railway is thereby preserving a closed system by necessity. That’s the real reason this line is so valuable as a museum piece – and why it stays fragile.

The same gauge, two completely different worlds

891mm isn’t only heritage history. North of Stockholm, a commuter network still runs on this measurement today, with modern vehicles and a dense service. The comparison is worthwhile because it shows how differently the same technical foundation can be used.

For placing it, that means: the gauge alone says nothing about the character of a railway. Just as little as a logo says about the operator – in Sweden too, brand, vehicle keeper and operating company are three different things, and heritage railways are no exception here.

Anyone drawing the comparison across borders sees the same pattern everywhere. The Lithuanian 750mm railway works with Soviet technology in a closed system, the Harz narrow-gauge railways operate metre gauge as a genuine means of transport with a year-round timetable. Three countries, three gauges, three answers to the question of what a narrow-gauge railway is still for today.

Railcars for a closed system

The backbone is diesel. Characteristic are light Swedish-design railcars from the 1950s in narrow-gauge form – vehicles originally built to keep branch lines running cheaply, and which for exactly that reason still exist today. Add to that narrow-gauge diesel locomotives, passenger cars and service vehicles, plus steam on individual announced dates.

We give no details on specific running numbers here: the serviceable fleet changes, and there are no reliable sources on it. Note down type, livery and train formation instead – that will still hold up in five years’ time.

The contrast with Swedish regular service is enormous. On the country’s standard-gauge main lines, SJ runs tilting trains in long-distance service, and in the south, Swedish and Danish systems meet at the Öresund. Between these trains and a narrow-gauge railcar in Småland lie not just seventy years, but two railway worlds that were never technically related.

How to plan a day at the line

Rare gauges deserve documenting

You won't see 891mm anywhere else. Log type, place and date while it's fresh.

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Photographing in forest and lake country

The low train against tall stand is the central creative challenge. An 891mm vehicle is small; where the forest is dense, it disappears. So deliberately look for openings: clearings, lakeshores, meadow strips. The sun position matters more than usual here, because scattered light in the stand tips quickly – how to check it beforehand is covered in the piece on sun position at the photo spot. For access roads, prepared map material is worthwhile, see using offline maps for spotting.

Operating body, volunteering and what I won’t claim

Honesty matters more here than a smooth formulation. The operating body and organisational form of this railway have changed several times, and the current arrangements can’t be reliably reconstructed from the German-speaking world. What can be said: the operation rests, like practically all heritage railways of this size, on volunteer work – driving duty, workshop, track maintenance and stewarding included.

The effort involved is considerable. Seventy-one kilometres of own infrastructure means track, level crossings, structures and vegetation management over a distance that some regional railways don’t even reach. That this railway still runs at all is therefore not something to take for granted.

Anyone travelling in Sweden anyway can broaden the theme. The Inlandsbanan stands for tourist traffic on standard gauge over very long distances, and in the far north, the ore line near Abisko shows the exact opposite: heavyweight freight instead of heritage narrow gauge. How to plan such trips is described in the piece on Interrail for train fans.

Verdict

This railway isn’t a spontaneous destination. Short season, long journey, few trains – that demands planning. Anyone who puts in the effort sees vehicles and a gauge that doesn’t exist outside Sweden, on a line unusually long for a heritage railway.

Pick a section, plan two spots and work out the chase beforehand. The rest is forest, water, and a train that looks very small in it.

Record what still runs here

Closed systems disappear quietly. Your sightings are documentation, not just statistics.

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