Dovrebanen

The ends existed before the middle

The northern section from Trondheim to Støren opened as a narrow-gauge railway in 1864. From the south, the railway reached Hamar from Eidsvoll in 1880, Tretten in 1894, Otta in 1896 and Dombås in 1913. 01

Each stage served its own district before it became part of a national through route. Mjøsa and Gudbrandsdalen therefore had railway histories long before a train could continue over Dovrefjell to Trondheim. 01 04

Parliament chose the mountain connection

In 1908 Parliament approved the Dombås-Støren railway. At that moment “Dovrebanen” described the new section across and north of Dovrefjell, not automatically every older kilometre between Eidsvoll and Trondheim. 01 04

The project linked the southern standard-gauge railway with the northern system. Existing narrow-gauge railways had to be rebuilt so that a train could make the complete journey without a change of gauge. 01

The railway climbs above one thousand metres

North of Dombås, the line crosses the Dovre plateau, reaches Hjerkinn and descends through Drivdalen towards Oppdal. Its highest point is about 1,024 metres above sea level just north of Hjerkinn. 01 04

The engineering challenge was not only gradient and rock. Snow, wind, exposed terrain and the distance from established supply routes shaped both construction and later operation. The railway had to become a permanent mountain system rather than a single completed work. 02 04

The stations were designed as part of the landscape

Competitions held in 1911 and 1912 helped define the architecture of the stations over Sel and Dovrefjell. Arnstein Arneberg and Erik Glosimodt developed nationally inspired designs in wood and stone for the new mountain railway. 04 05

The buildings were practical railway facilities, but they also gave the project a public image. The architecture announced that the difficult route across the mountain belonged to a national network. 04 05

The final link opened at Hjerkinn

Dombås-Støren entered service in 1921. King Haakon VII officially opened Dovrebanen at Hjerkinn on 17 September, completing the continuous railway from Eidsvoll to Trondheim. 01 02

The photograph above shows the decorated train, the crowd and the high mountain station during the ceremony. It was taken by Narve Skarpmoen. 07

The celebration was followed by tragedy

On 18 September, the day after the opening, the returning guest train collided with a northbound express at Nidareid outside Trondheim. Six people were killed and fourteen were injured. Architect Erik Glosimodt was among those who died. 05 06

The accident belongs in the history because it occurred directly in the opening journey and affected people who had helped create the line. It is recorded here without turning loss into spectacle.

The completed line became a military artery

Dovrebanen had been complete for nineteen years when Germany invaded Norway. No new main-line section between Eidsvoll and Trondheim opened during the occupation. What changed was the use of the railway. Dombås connected Dovrebanen with Raumabanen and therefore controlled rail movement both north-south and towards the coast at Åndalsnes. 01 13

German paratroops attacked Dombås on 14 April 1940. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage describes railway traffic as a lifeline of the German military system and Dombås as one of its most important inland junctions. The occupying forces then developed a large military area around the town, used it for troop transit and rest, and held between 5,000 and 10,000 personnel there. The wider complex contained about 180 large barracks, hundreds of smaller buildings and camps for Yugoslav and Soviet prisoners of war. 13

By the final winter of occupation, the same transport value made the inland railways targets for resistance operations. Operation Grebe was tasked with disrupting road and railway movements through northern Østerdalen and Gudbrandsdalen, with actions extending to the railway at Otta. The wartime story of Dovrebanen is therefore chiefly one of control, military transport, protection and sabotage — not of a new railway being laid across Dovrefjell. 14

Electric operation took another generation

Electric trains reached Hamar in 1953. The conversion then advanced north in stages until the full Eidsvoll-Trondheim railway was electric in 1970. 01 04

Electrification changed traction and capacity but not the essential geography. Passenger and freight trains still shared a long, mostly single-track main line through valleys and mountain terrain. 01

A national corridor still being rebuilt

Dovrebanen remains one of Norway's principal north-south railways for both passengers and freight. Modern projects have begun replacing constrained sections with double track: Langset-Kleverud opened in 2015 and Eidsvoll-Langset in 2023. 01 03

The line's history is therefore not a closed centenary story. The same corridor assembled from nineteenth- and twentieth-century railways is being changed again to carry twenty-first-century traffic. 01 03

When the freight lifeline broke

All through freight between Oslo and Trondheim normally runs over Dovrebanen, and rail holds about half of the freight market on that route. At Trondheim, the transport chain continues directly onto Nordlandsbanen, with freight terminals at Mosjøen, Mo i Rana, Fauske and Bodø. Dovrebanen is therefore both the freight lifeline to Trondheim and the southern link in a rail corridor that reaches all the way to Bodø. 01 08

In August 2023, flooding during Storm Hans undermined a foundation of Randklev bridge at Ringebu. Two bridge spans fell into Gudbrandsdalslågen, cutting the through route for nine months. The rebuilt bridge reopened on 20 May 2024; the first train across it was a freight train heading towards Oslo. 09 11

As much freight as possible was diverted over Rørosbanen. From 4 September, freight departures between Hamar and Røros increased from two to six a day in each direction, while passenger departures were reduced from six to two. Even with that priority, there was not room for every freight train. Rørosbanen has lower capacity than Dovrebanen, and its diesel operation created an additional problem: there were not enough suitable locomotives to reproduce the normal service. 10 12

The result was an approximate halving of rail freight between Oslo and Trondheim, with much of the displaced volume moving to road. Bane NOR later estimated the total societal cost of the closure at about NOK 1.4 billion, including roughly NOK 215 million in added costs for freight customers and NOK 75 million in external costs from increased road traffic and diesel operation. 10 11