Today Yesterday, our normal gauge mainline (Kongsvingerbanen - The Kongsvinger Line, running between Lillestrom and Kongsvinger in Norway) celebrated it’s 150th anniversary, and had a visit from a very classy old lady - the steam engine “Caroline” - which was built in 1861 by Robert Stephenson & Co in Newcastle on Tyne in England. She pulled a train consisting of old passenger cars from the same era.
Our local newspaper caught an excellent picture of Caroline on the standard gauge main (upper right) and a double headed narrow gauge passenger train pulled by locomotives “Setskogen” and “Prydz” on the narrow gauge line at lower left:
Wonderful photo, thanks so much for posting! Who says “ghosts” don’t exist? Anyway, what can you tell us about “Caroline”? Is she kept in a museum in Norway and trotted out for special occasions?
I’d also be interested in the gauge of the narrow gauge line. FWIW, I could make out maybe half of the text of the article, took German in High School, was exposed to Svensk in the 1980’s and mi farmor was from near Stavanger.
The narrow gauge (which is the pride of my small home town of Sørumsand, thanks to the many volunteers who run the railroad on their spare time) is a small segment of a few miles left of the tertiary railroad Urskog-Hølandsbanen (ø = o with a slash).
It is 750 mm (about 2 1/2 foot) gauge. Operated from 1896 to 1945 as a private railroad company, from 1945 until 1961 as a branch line of the Norwegian State Railroads, and then a group of enthusiasts took over to run it as museum railroad on a small part of the track.
They run quite often - three or four trips every Sunday in the summertime, as well as on various other occasions and for photo charters and tours. Me and my family has made a tradition of going for the New Year’s Ride.
Locos on the UHB aren’t that old - the newest - 2-6-2T no 7 (“Prydz” - named for a former manager of the railroad) was built by Henschel in Germany in 1950 - i.e. only 11 years before the narrow gauge side line was taken out of service due to increased competition from buses, trucks and cars post WW2. The loco heading the narrow gauge consist in the newspaper photo (No 4 - “Setskogen” - named for one of the parishes served) was built by Hartmann in Chemnitz, Germany, in 1909, so it is just over 100 years old.
Caroline is an older locomotive. She was built by Robert Stephenson & co in Newcastle on Tyne in 1861 - i.e. in the opening year of the American civil war. And yes - Robert Stephenson was the son of George Stephenson - of “The Rocket” fame.
Early railroading in Norway was built by British engineers. Our first railroad was the narrow gauge (later normal gauge) “Hovedbanen” (“main line”) from Oslo (which back then was call
You’ll have to bear with me, as a slightly linguistically challenged American- I was raised in Tennessee and Mississippi, and then move to Kansas ( Am still trying to learn Kanglish from my Native Kansan wife.[%-)]
I’ll try a quick and dirty translation of the article from Indre Akershus Blad:
Photo caption:
It was a historic moment when “Tertitten” [the nickname for UHB - derived from the fact that the railroad was a “tertiary railroad” - i.e. narrow gauge railroad with gauge even narrower than 1067 mm] lead by the locomotive “Setskogen” and the “carriage train” with Caroline in front ran side by side outside Sørumsand [a small town about 35 miles east of Oslo].
A “carriage train” is a passenger train with old fashioned passenger cars, where each compartment has it’s own door to the outside, and there is not central corridor down through the car. The conductor walked down along the outside of the train on a foot board, knocking on each door window to collect tickets from the passengers. It is a style of car that comes from Britain, and which wasn’t all that popular with conductors - Norway has a worse climate than Britain - no fun walking on a board on the outside when it snows, is icy, cold and windy.
Main article:
Five minutes past ten today railroad history happened at Sørumsand - a historic moment it may be a long time until the next time you can experience.
In connection with the Kongsvinger Line’s 150th anniversary the 151 year old locomotive Caroline fronted the jubilee, while the UHB locomotive Setskogen and it’s cars and passengers took part in the celebration.
After departing from Sørumsand station about at the same time, the two trains met at Fyen [a farm name] outside Sørumsand.
The two trains flirted over a stretch of a few hundred yards between Sørumsand station and Bingsfos station [on the narrow gauge line], before Caroline continued towards År
Kinda - the part from Lillestrøm in Norway to Kongsvinger (later extended to Magnor on the border with Sweden) is the Norwegian State Railroad’s “Kongsvinger line”.
The line going from Magnor on the Norwegian/Swedish border though Charlottenberg, Arvika, Karlstad, Kristineham to the junction town of Laxå on the mainline between Stockholm and Gothenburg is the Swedish Railroad’s “Värmland line”
But trains run from Oslo through Kongsvinger to Charlottenberg, from Oslo through Kongsvinger to Karlstad/Kristinehamn and from Oslo through Kongsvinger etc to Stockholm, so for practical purposes it is the same line.
From my local depot at Sorumsand, I can take several passenger trains into Oslo - the NSB class 69 and NSB class 72 (and from December also the new NSB class 75) Electric Motor Unit commuter trains operated by NSB from Årnes or Kongsvinger to Oslo, the Swedish State Railroad’s Intercity trains from Stockholm to Oslo (RC4 electric locos - similar to the AEM7s, pulling passenger cars), and the two car X-52 Regina EMUs of Swedish private railroad company “Värmlandstrafik” which runs from Karlstad to Oslo.
The Kongsvinger Line is one of four connections between the Norwegian and Swedish railroad lines - the four, from south to North are:
Between Halden and Gothenburg in Sweden (and onwards to Denmark and the continent)
Between Kongsvinger and Karlstad/Stockholm in Sweden (Kongsvingerbanen)
Between Trondheim/Meråker in Norway and Østersund in Sweden (mid-central Norw
No apologies needed on your verbose" answer, as the information is quite interesting. Guess my original question was a bit like asking if Rock Springs Wyoming was on the Central Pacific line, with Rock Springs being on UP’s side of the original transcon.
One reason for asking is that my grandfather (farfar) was from a village about 15 km north of central Arvika. I downloaded a modern map of Arvika and noted the rail line, some googing showed that is the line between Oslo and Stockholm - amused to note that Arvika is closer to Oslo than Stockholm.
Takk,
Erik
P.S. Just found out that Stein died at the age of 47 (this being written 8:10PM PDT on Oct 8). I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with him on this thread and am feeling very sad that that he’s no longer with us.