1: READY FOR DEPARTURE
On July 10, 1908, HM King Haakon VII stood at Svorkmo Station and declared the Thamshavn Line open. The industrialisation of mining at Løkken required efficient transport of the large quantities of pyrite that were to be delivered to the world.
The owners of the mining company, Christian Salvesen and Christian Thams, decided to build Norway’s first electric railway – which also became the world’s first successful railway powered by alternating current.
Letter to the king
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On September 30, 1897, Chr. Salvesen and Chr. Thams submitted a licence application to the King. They requested permission to build and operate a railway in Orkdalen. The mining company was dependent on such a system to be internationally competitive. Reviewing the application took time – the license was not granted until February 1904, by Royal Decree.
Construction
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More than 300 people participated in the construction of the railway. There were travelling labourers, Swedish navvies and local workers. The entire valley was affected by the construction activity and the rapid population increase.
The engineering firm Strøm & Hornemann led the work until the spring of 1907. Then a conflict arose between the firm and Christian Thams, and Salvesen & Thams’ own engineer, Ziegler, took over management of the project.
Despite challenges of various kinds, cooperation between the different work teams remained very efficient. Equipped with only pickaxes, shovels, wheelbarrows and a small steam locomotive, they completed the tracks between Orkanger and Svorkmo in just one year and eight months.
Steam or electric?
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When the licence application was submitted, it had not yet been decided whether the railway would run on steam or electricity. Electricity was not commonly used, but steam-powered locomotives had lower traction – and transporting pyrite from the mines would require considerable freight capacity.
At the beginning of the 1900s, some promising experiments had been made using single-phase alternating current engines on railways in Europe, and Salvesen & Thams eventually decided to build the country’s first electric railway. It was a choice with major consequences. Among other things, they had to secure rights to several rivers and build power stations and transmission lines.
Wide or narrow?
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When they first started building railroads around the world, there was no common standard for track width (gauge).
Narrow gauge had dominated in Norway since the 1850s, but in 1898 the Norwegian Parliament decided that the Bergen Line should be built using what we now call standard gauge. The Thamshavn Line was nevertheless built using narrow gauge, and is, alongside Gråkallbanen in Trondheim, the only Norwegian line with a 1000 mm gauge.
Ore, goods and people
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Pyrite hauling was the very heart of the railway operation. In order to transport this important raw material out into the world, specially built pyrite wagons were used, and for most people in Orkdalen, the long trains of pyrite wagons thundering through the valley were a familiar sight.
But the Thamshavn Line also carried goods and passengers from the very beginning in 1908. It is estimated that around 8 million passengers travelled here from the opening until the last passenger train ran between Løkken Verk and Thamshavn on 30 April 1963.
Pyrite transport continued until 1974. By then, the mining company had switched its production to copper and zinc concentrates from its new flotation plant, and trucks took over the transport.
A series of grand openings
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In 1908, the Thamshavn–Svorkmo section was opened by HM King Haakon VII. Two years later, the Løkken–Svorkmo section was opened, and this time it was Prime Minister Wollert Konow who conducted the official opening.
«This line is an occasion in several respects. The line was the first utility railway to be granted a license for general traffic, secondly the first private railway built without any government subsidies, and finally the first electric railway in Norway. It was therefore a landmark day for the country.» (excerpt from Konow’s opening speech, reproduced in Nidaros, 16 August 1910)
The Thamshavn Line as
a heritage site
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The idea of a museum railway was born as soon as traffic was suspended in 1974. But it took many years before it became a reality. Enthusiasts launched a rescue operation to salvage much of the railway materiel that sat ready to be scrapped and dismantled. Thamshavnbanens Venner (Friends of the Thamshavn Line) was established in 1982, and the following year – on the day 75 years after King Haakon VII had opened the line, the Thamshavn Line was opened as a museum railway, with passenger trains between Løkken and Svorkmo.
Today, the Thamshavn Line is a protected cultural heritage site. The railway’s infrastructure, and the unique rolling stock that has been preserved and restored, tell the story of the modernisation of Norway, of the industrial boom, and of how the world became both smaller and larger at the same time once people and pyrite had access to modern and efficient transport.