BERGEN the Bergen Railway
OSLO - BERGEN The Bergen Railway www.nsb.no Foto: Rolf M. Sørensen THE BERGEN RAILWAY WAS OFFICIALLY OPENED IN A CEREMONY AT VOSS ON 27 lanning a railway across working on the line at any one is flung up to 40 metres into the Hardangervidda time. In fact, during the busiest the air.You can imagine how NOVEMBER 1909 BY KING HAAKON.THE KING HELD AN ENTHUSIASTIC INAUGURATION P mountain range was no small construction period, the num- difficult this job was in the SPEECH, DESCRIBING THE NEW RAILWAY LINE BETWEEN OSLO AND BERGEN AS “OUR task. At one point, more pre- ber of workers totalled 2,200. early 20th century, when the GENERATION’S MASTERPIECE”. cisely at Taugevatn, the line is Over the entire project period, rotary ploughs were powered 1,301 metres above sea level, some 15,000 workers were by steam.The steam-powered WHILE THE LINE WAS BEING PLANNED NORWAY WAS STILL IN A UNION WITH SWEDEN, making the Bergen Railway employed to build the Bergen plough was in still in use well AND FOR ADMINISTRATIVE PURPOSES IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR THE UNITED the highest and most chal- Railway. into the 1970s. It is not unusu- lenging line in northern The primitive camps where al to see 4–5 metre deep MONARCHY TO IMPROVE TRANSPORT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MAJOR CITIES. Europe.Time and again, the the workers lived were a para- snowdrifts in places such as NORWAY’S CAPITAL,WHICH WAS CALLED KRISTIANIA UNTIL ITS NAME WAS CHANGED railway workers faced the dise for lice and it was a daily Finse after a blizzard.
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