This is where 75-year-old Hélène’s protest journey in a wheelchair against SJ begins

First, she sits alone in the small four-wheeled electric wheelchair by Sergels Torg’s fence. It is slightly larger than a normal electric wheelchair. And yes, it has a longer turning radius. But above all, it has a government.

Helene fnyser, seems tired of the explanations SJ leans to when she is ready to travel by train.

Rule? Well yes no then it doesn’t work. There are no handlebars on board the train.

– SJ has long gone the wrong way, eliminated freight cars and luggage space. It’s because they only want old people with laptops on board, SJ is no longer for all the Swedish people, says Hélène Gladsaxe in her hoarse voice.

Now someone is coming.

– I saw you on TV! Well protested! says a woman.

Helene continues:

– When all the other disabled people adapt and facilitate and want to help, SJ does the opposite. A family with two children who goes on vacation and has two large suitcases and a couple of bicycles cannot travel with SJ. It is not even possible to reserve a place for bicycles in advance. If you want to spend your holidays in Sweden, you have to go by car.

Some more appear, a young woman in a wheelchair with company. They agree with Hélène. The girl is sitting in a normal wheelchair, without handlebars. You can take one on a train. But only one. Unless the space is occupied by a stroller.

– I will never be able to travel by train with a friend who is also in a wheelchair, because you can only have one on board. And imagine a whole class in a wheelchair who wants to take a school trip, says the girl.

So after much planning and many interviews are happening today: a 75-year-old woman who needs a wheelchair and “who is in all risk groups”, who lives next to the Klaraberg viaduct and usually rolls through the center of Stockholm with her wheelchair Electric: Heading north under a pandemic on a protest trip against SJ for at least 16 days.

Forty miles a day along country roads and bike trails. Overnight stays in a sleeping bag with people who have invited her to a cabin on the plot, or to a hostel.

Now son of Hélèns Mikis Kanakaris and his grandson Filiph introduced themselves.

– It is not strange at all that he does this, he has fought for different things throughout his life. Against Franco in the 70s for example. Now it is BB’s occupation in Sollefteå that he wants to climb up and show his support for, says his son Mikis Kanakaris.

Thus began the protest march against SJ. Hélène wanted to go to the occupants of BB to give them her support, but it was impossible. Now she has created public opinion and has gained 3,000 followers on Facebook, and although she does not like technical gadgets, she has acquired a tablet, to try to report every day how things are going during the trip.

– You’re worried, Mikis continues, turn to Hélène.

– Not for what?

You have been allowed to call your doctor 24 hours a day if necessary. If the power wheelchair breaks, he fixes it on the road, he says.

Mikis himself is concerned by the tensions. The electric wheelchair you switch to at Märsta is certainly a bit larger and requires more packaging, but it’s not made for uneven surfaces and higher speeds either.

– He will bounce and jump, and there is a risk of concussion, says Mikis.

If the wheelchair breaks or something else happens, he goes to find Hélène.

– But if I know her well, she has first exhausted all other possibilities.

The time has come It is almost ten fifteen when Hélène Gladsaxe removes her small protest banner, smokes her cigarette, sits in the four-wheeled electric wheelchair, goes around the Sergels Torg roundabout and continues through Sveavägen, accompanied by a procession made up of two other electric wheelchairs, and Mikis and Filiph on bicycles.

The first stop is Rosersberg. There they invite her to charge the battery and have coffee.

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