Sørlandsbanen

The rails were older than the name

The first part of the future route opened before anyone spoke of Sørlandsbanen. Randsfjordbanen reached from Drammen to Hokksund in 1866, and its narrow-gauge branch to Kongsberg opened in 1871. That older alignment later formed the eastern approach to the railway south. 02 04 05

At the western end, the narrow-gauge Jærbanen opened between Egersund and Stavanger in 1878. In the middle, Setesdalsbanen opened from Kristiansand to Byglandsfjord in 1896. Each railway answered a local transport need long before it became a piece of a national main line. 05 08 09

Before the south, it was the west

The project was first called Vestlandsbanen. In the 1880s, planners argued over two broad alternatives: a coastal railway serving the towns directly, or an inland route through Telemark and the interior of Agder. The inland route won support partly because the coastal towns already had strong shipping links, while the interior had far poorer communications. Branch lines could then connect selected coastal towns. 02 05

The name also changed. The poet Vilhelm Krag had helped establish “Sørlandet” as the name of the region and campaigned for the railway to carry it. When Parliament approved the first section in 1908 it was still Vestlandsbanen; by the decision to continue west in 1923, Sørlandsbanen was the established name. 02

Parliament fixed the route twice

The 1908 decision authorised a standard-gauge railway from Kongsberg to Neslandsvatn with a branch to Kragerø. It did not yet settle the entire journey to Stavanger. 01 02 05

In 1923, Parliament approved the continuation from Neslandsvatn through Kristiansand towards Egersund. That decision completed the political map of the through railway. Construction would still take another twenty-one years. 02 05

The railway moved west in chapters

In 1920, new track opened from Kongsberg to Hjuksebø, where trains could continue over the shared Bratsbergbanen alignment to Nordagutu. The railway reached Neslandsvatn and Kragerø in 1927, Nelaug and Arendal in 1935, and Kristiansand in 1938. 01 02 04

Each temporary end point changed the travel chain. Long-distance trains were extended as the railway advanced, while branches to Kragerø and Arendal connected the inland main line back to the coast. The complete route to Stavanger did not open until 1944. 01 02

At Grovane, two gauges met

Setesdalsbanen had opened in 1896 as a 78.3-kilometre narrow-gauge railway from Kristiansand to Byglandsfjord. Its traffic included timber, wood products and other goods from the valley, with steamships carrying the transport chain farther north from Byglandsfjord. 08

When standard-gauge Sørlandsbanen reached Kristiansand in 1938, the southern part of Setesdalsbanen was displaced and Grovane became the new transfer station. Passengers and goods continuing into Setesdal had to move between the 1,435-millimetre main line and the 1,067-millimetre valley railway. The surviving museum railway preserves part of that older system today. 05 08

The railway of bridges

Sørlandsbanen cuts across valleys, rivers and waterways more often than Norway's other main lines. The Norwegian Railway Directorate counts 496 bridges between Drammen and Stavanger. 03

The structures also reveal the railway's age in layers. Stone arches dominate much of the older eastern section. Large steel bridges are characteristic between Neslandsvatn and Kristiansand, while concrete is more prominent farther west. The result is not one engineering style, but a built record of different periods and materials. 03

Two tunnels, one narrow opening to daylight

West of Kristiansand, the railway repeatedly leaves one valley by tunnel and emerges into the next. The two longest meet the short open section at Snartemo: Hægebostadtunnelen approaches from the east at 8,474 metres, and Kvinesheitunnelen continues west for 9,065 metres. 02 06 07

Kvinesheitunnelen was completed in 1942 and remained Norway's longest railway tunnel until Lieråsen opened in 1973. Hægebostadtunnelen opened in 1943 as the railway advanced to Moi. A memorial at Snartemo records the 24 people killed in accidents during the railway works from 1934 to 1944. 06 07

The final link was completed under occupation

The project did not begin with the invasion. Parliament had approved the continuation in 1923, construction was already under way, and trains had reached Kristiansand in 1938. After the occupation, however, the German military command made completion of the Oslo-Stavanger connection its first railway-building priority in southern Norway. With NSB as construction manager, 4,200 people were working on the line in summer 1941; Norwegian and German private contractors were also brought in. 02 12

The decisive missing link was the tunnel-rich railway from Kristiansand to Sira. Much of the work had begun before the occupation, but the wartime programme forced the unfinished route into service, including Kvineshei and Hægebostad tunnels. 02 06 07

In 1944, the new connection and the provisional standard-gauge conversion of the 75-kilometre Jærbanen created continuous operation to Stavanger. The opening did not mean every western work was finished to its final standard. Major improvements west of Sira continued until 1953, and between Sira and Ogna the resulting line was in practice largely new. 02 09 12

This part of Sørlandsbanen's history involved NSB-led construction and Norwegian and German contractors. It is separate from the history of prisoner labour on the northern railway projects, which belongs to Nordlandsbanen. 12

Electric operation came in stages

The long tunnels made smoke from steam locomotives a practical problem. Electric operation on the Marnardal-Sira tunnel section was therefore prioritised and introduced in 1944. The wires reached Kristiansand from the east in 1949. 02 04

The full route did not become electric at once. Official Railway Directorate sources place completion to Stavanger in 1956. That is the date used here. 01 02

A long main line, still mostly single track

The modern overview describes a 549.0-kilometre electrified railway between Drammen and Stavanger, with 45 passenger stations and stops. Most of it is single track; the Sandnes-Stavanger section gained double track in 2009. 01

The railway runs west through Kongsberg and Telemark, reaches Kristiansand, crosses the tunnel-rich western section and continues over the rebuilt former Jærbanen to Stavanger. Its route carries traces of every railway and construction period gathered into the present line. 01 02

An Oslo-Bergen train uses Sørlandsbanen only from Gulskogen through Mjøndalen and Steinberg to Hokksund, where it turns north onto Randsfjordbanen. That overlap is a small part of Sørlandsbanen, not the definition of it.