High-speed rail in Norway


Opened on the 8th of October 1998, the only high-speed rail in Norway, on the railways of Norway is on Gardermobanen, a 64 kilometer line between Oslo Central Station and Eidsvoll via Oslo Airport. The main service on this route is Flytoget, commuting between Oslo Airport and the metropolitan areas of Oslo at speeds of up to 210 km/h. It was extended westwards to include the city of Drammen in 2008, though not at high speed. The high-speed section is also used by express and regional trains between Oslo and Eidsvoll.
In September 2010, Jernbaneverket awarded several contracts for research into new high-speed routes in Norway. These focus on six routes; five from Oslo to Bergen, Kristiansand/Stavanger, Trondheim, Gothenburg, and Stockholm, plus a sixth coastal route through Bergen, Haugesund and Stavanger.

Background

Compared to continental European countries, Norway is far more sparsely populated and quite mountainous. On the one hand this causes problems filling up trains, especially compared to other European projects and will give difficulties reaching necessary passenger numbers. On the other hand, Norwegians travel considerably more long-distance than other Europeans, for instance three of Europe's 11 busiest air routes are within Norway. Also, the long-distance road network of Norway has relatively low average speed, making air travel the main long-distance travel option today. The slow roads makes it easier for trains to compete, even though the road network also is being upgraded. For example, a 4-lane motorway will exist from Oslo to Hamar long before the planned double-track railway will. The difficult geography with fjords and mountains has historically meant circuitous routes of both roads and rail lines.
Estimates for construction costs have shown that building in Norway is considerably cheaper than on the continent, due to the ability to build tracks straight on bedrock. Also the tunnels usually can be made without sealing Furthermore, expropriation costs are lower since most of the corridors will go through unpopulated areas.
So far, train speed has not been prioritised on long-distance railways in Norway. Oslo-Bergen takes about 6:40 in 2007. Oslo-Trondheim takes 6:45. These times are about the same as during the last decades, and give an average speed of about 80 km/h. Oslo-Gothenburg is a little faster at 89 km/h, but this is due to Swedish rail quality rather than Norwegian.
As can be seen in the chapter "Future plans", not much will be built before 2020, and no new track will be operated above 200 km/h in this time. If there is a decision to really build new long-distance high-speed lines it will represent a big change in national transport policy. The situation changed in 2018 after new transportation investment plan. It is claimed that additional 270 km of high-speed lines will be built until 2029.

Plans

In Norway there are plans to build a few 200 km/h railways in near future. This limit of 200 km/h might be raised slightly in the future on certain straight parts of track. There is a decision from around 2012 of trying to allow 250 km/h on new projects, because an EU directive mandates this on new mainlines.
There is also a political climate for building more high-speed railway services in Norway. The Norwegian National Railway Administration, Jernbaneverket, has paid for an analysis on the possibilities for building high-speed railway services in Norway. The VWI Stuttgart has done this analysis.
The conclusions indicate that the most interesting corridors are Oslo-Gothenburg and Oslo-Trondheim. The Oslo-Bergen corridor could expect the highest passenger count, but is much more expensive to build.
According to the report, the lines are assumed to be single-track railways, with up to 4% grade, dedicated to high-speed passenger trains with a 250 km/h maximum cruise speed. Closer to the big cities, the railways would be double-track and also be used for regional trains.
The feasibility study has suggested that a passenger count of 5000 per day per line could be expected if rail is competitive with air travel. This is much lower than German or French high-speed lines, and building double tracks will not be economical. It will, however, be hard to get below three hours from Oslo to Bergen or Trondheim on single track, as meeting trains will be very sensitive to delays. Travel time above three hours makes it hard to compete with air travel. There is no single-track high-speed railway in operation in the world at the moment. The VWI investigation suggests very long passing loops to be able to pass at 160 km/h, and accept some delays without delaying meeting trains. Since these railways would be high-speed only, the passing loops need only to be 30 minutes travel time apart.
Though the initiative to the analysis itself is an evidence of a promising political climate for high-speed railways, the analysis has been heavily criticized for not being done by a recognised competence in this area, for being based on inaccurate facts, and for using gross miscalculations of important data, like potential passenger numbers and potential costs of building new high-speed tracks. Mainly these criticisms are from lobbyist organisations which prefer railways to Bergen and Ålesund, which has been seen as too expensive by VWI. Especially the recommendation by WVI to use Østerdalen and only one stop there has been criticised.
The Red-green coalition government did, with support from the Progress party and the Conservative Party, declare in 2013 that there will be no high-speed railways outside the regional network around Oslo until at least year 2030. They claim it is a waste of money. Their opinion became opposite after new plans approved in 2018, government decided to spend more to transportation as a reaction to the same decisions abroad.

Suggestions for high-speed railway networks

There are also several independent initiatives for high-speed railways in Norway: