Scenic route
Bergensbanen
Oslo → Bergen · Norway
Bergensbanen in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 496 km
- Fastest time
- 6 h 30 min
- Average speed
- 76 km/h
- Top speed
- 160 km/h
- Operator
- Vy
- Train
- Vy long-distance
- Countries
- Norway
- In service since
- 1909
- Runs
- 4–5× daily plus a night train
- Highest point
- 1,237 m
- Riders per year
- ≈ 1M
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Northern Europe’s highest main line: over the bare Hardangervidda plateau at 1,237 m, through 182 tunnels.
Hailed at its 1909 opening as the era’s greatest Norwegian engineering feat, the Bergen Line was built largely by hand across a roadless mountain plateau. The train climbs out of Oslo’s forests into Hallingdal, breaks the treeline near Geilo and crosses a tundra of rock, ice and hikers’ huts where snow fences guard the rails even in July. Finse, reachable only by rail or on foot, marks the top before the long fall through Voss to Bergen’s rain-washed harbour.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 9531101 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within 65 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 19 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 0.1 km from the shape of R 63 (Zug-Nr. 63)
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Hallingdal valley farms
- Geilo ski country
- Hardangerjøkulen glacier from Finse
- Myrdal — junction for the Flåmsbana
- Voss lake district
- Bergen’s fjord-side finale
More scenic routes
- Glacier Express
“The world’s slowest express”: 291 bridges, 91 tunnels and the 2,033 m Oberalp Pass at an average of 36 km/h.
Wikipedia ↗ - Bernina Express
A UNESCO World Heritage railway: 7 % grades with no rack, the Brusio spiral, and the highest rail crossing of the Alps at 2,253 m.
Wikipedia ↗ - West Highland Line
Regularly voted the world’s most scenic railway: around Rannoch Moor and over the 21-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct of film fame.
Wikipedia ↗ - Qinghai–Tibet Railway
The roof-of-the-world railway: 5,072 m over the Tanggula Pass on permafrost, with oxygen piped to every seat.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Norway.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Bergen → Oslo · Oslo → Bergen.