A new rail service carrying 44 forty-foot containers per departure is now running from Malungsfors in Sweden's Dalarna region to the Port of Gothenburg, moving sawn timber bound for markets in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The first train departed for Swedish timber producer Fiskarheden, which exports roughly 90 percent of its production. Its sawn timber ends up in furniture, construction and concrete formwork applications across three continents.

The service departs every other Monday, and capacity can expand if demand grows. That biweekly cadence gives Dalarna exporters a predictable inland leg into Gothenburg, Scandinavia's largest container port, without relying on trucking for the roughly 500-kilometre haul to the coast.

TFK Logistics developed the connection and positions it as a cost-effective and flexible route to international deep-sea shipping via Gothenburg. Crucially for regional shippers, the service is not exclusive: companies across the Dalarna region can book space on the same trains as Fiskarheden.

For the Port of Gothenburg, the new link extends the reach of its Railport Scandinavia network, which channels inland freight onto rail and feeds it into the port's ocean services.

Back on rail

Joakim Limberg, CEO of Fiskarheden, framed the launch as a return to rail freight at the Port of Gothenburg that fits the company's ambition to shift as much inland freight as possible from road to rail.

He also flagged a commercial opportunity on the backhaul. The return journey from Gothenburg to Dalarna could carry imported goods, and Fiskarheden is in active discussions with regional businesses about bidirectional shipments. Filling containers in both directions would cut the cost of empty repositioning and increase the service's value to local operators — the economics that determine whether a biweekly train can grow into something larger.

Richard Mellgren, Senior Business Development Manager at the Port of Gothenburg, called the service a good example of what Railport Scandinavia can offer inland exporters seeking efficient access to international shipping routes.

What it means for shippers and forwarders

For timber exporters in Dalarna, the service offers a scheduled, high-capacity alternative to road haulage, with 44 FEU per departure equal to roughly 44 truck movements removed from the E18 and connecting corridors each time the train runs. For forwarders booking Asian and MENA sailings out of Gothenburg, additional rail-fed volumes from Dalarna add density to the port's hinterland flows.

The open-access structure matters most. A single-shipper train lives or dies on that shipper's cargo base; a service open to all regional companies can aggregate volumes from smaller exporters who could never justify dedicated rail capacity on their own. If the bidirectional discussions Limberg described convert into contracts, the service gains return-load revenue and improves its unit economics on every rotation.

The port, for its part, gains inland market share in a region where road transport currently dominates, reinforcing Gothenburg's position against competing Nordic gateways for Swedish forest products heading to Asian and MENA destinations.

If demand materialises — from additional Dalarna shippers, backhaul importers, or both — the operator has signalled capacity is available to increase frequency beyond the current every-other-Monday schedule, pointing toward a scalable rail corridor rather than a one-off logistics arrangement.