Flåm Line

Interesting facts

Only two of the line's 20 tunnels were dug with machines; the other 18 were cut by hand, at 116 to 180 man-hours for every metre.

The longest tunnel, Nåli, runs for 1,341.5 metres, and the line climbs from 2 metres above sea level at Flåm to 863.6 metres at Myrdal.

Two workers were killed in accidents during construction, one in 1925 and one in 1938.

Freight trains started running on 1 August 1940, months before passenger service began during the German occupation.

When the line opened, trains took 65 minutes downhill and 80 minutes uphill; today the journey takes about 50 and 59 minutes.

The whole project, including rolling stock, cost about 26.7 million Norwegian kroner.

Ridership grew from about 115,000 a year in the 1950s to 547,000 in 2010.

In 2007 the Flåm Line was the third most visited tourist attraction in Norway.

Why it is worth it

The Flåm Line is a short railway with an outsized landscape. In just 20.2 km it drops 866 m, from Myrdal station high on the mountain plateau to the village of Flåm at the head of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the Sognefjord, making it one of the steepest standard-gauge railways anywhere: for most of the way the gradient is 5.5 percent. To manage that descent the builders threaded the line through 20 tunnels, and laid curves as tight as 130 m in radius. Construction began in 1924 and the line opened to trains in 1940, with regular passenger service from February 1941; electric operation followed in 1944.

The trip is less a transfer than a descent through a sequence of landscapes. At the top, Myrdal sits among bare fells and snowfields, reachable only by rail. Below, the train edges along the steep walls of Flåmsdalen, with waterfalls falling from the cliffs on both sides and the valley floor opening up hundreds of metres beneath. Near the top of the descent it stops at Kjosfossen, where a platform was built in 1951 so passengers could step out beside a waterfall that plunges around 225 m in total. In summer the stop comes with a short performance: a dancer playing the huldra of Norwegian folklore, a forest spirit said to lure men into the hills, appears among the rocks and spray while music echoes off the cliff.

Further down the valley widens and softens, and the line ends practically at sea level beside the fjord in Flåm. Few railways deliver so much in under an hour: from high mountain to the edge of a fjord in about the time it takes to read a short book. It has become one of the most visited attractions in Norway, carrying more than half a million passengers a year.

Getting there

The line runs from Myrdal, a station on the Bergen Line between Oslo and Bergen, down to Flåm; most day trains between the two cities connect with it at Myrdal. Bergen is the nearest large city, about 107 km from the line in a straight line, and Bergen Airport, Flesland (BGO) is the practical gateway; the regional airport at Ørsta-Volda (HOV), though similar in straight-line distance, is on the other side of several fjords. Trains take roughly an hour between Flåm and Myrdal.

From the encyclopaedia

The Flåm Line is a 20.2-kilometer (12.6 mi) long railway line between Myrdal and Flåm in Aurland Municipality, in Vestland county, Norway. A branch line of the Bergen Line, it runs through the valley of Flåmsdalen and connects the mainline with Sognefjord. The line's elevation difference is 866 meters (2,841 ft); it has ten stations, twenty tunnels and one bridge. The maximum gradient is 5.5 percent (1:18). Because of its steep gradient and picturesque nature, the Flåm Line is now almost exclusively a tourist service and has become the third-most visited tourist attraction in Norway.

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Flåm Line

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia