Scenic route
Flåmsbana
Myrdal → Flåm · Norway
Flåmsbana in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 20 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 1 h
- Average speed
- 20 km/h
- Top speed
- 40 km/h
- Operator
- Vy · Flåm AS
- Train
- El 18-hauled panorama
- Countries
- Norway
- In service since
- 1940
- Runs
- up to 10× daily in summer, ~4× in winter
- Highest point
- 866 m
- Riders per year
- ≈ 1M
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
One of the steepest adhesion railways on Earth: 864 m down to the fjord in 20 km, waterfalls at the window.
No other branch line does this: from the bare mountain junction at Myrdal the track corkscrews down cliff faces, through tunnels hand-bored by navvies, eighteen of its twenty were dug without machines, and past farms clinging to ledges. The train pauses at Kjosfossen so everyone can be lightly soaked by the falls while, in summer, a red-dressed huldra dances among the rocks. Soon after, you are at sea level on the Aurlandsfjord in one of Norway’s most photographed villages.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 18611527 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 3 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 0.2 km from the shape of IC 1851
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Myrdal mountain junction
- Kjosfossen falls photo stop
- hairpins of the old navvies’ road
- ledge farms of the Flåm valley
- Aurlandsfjord at sea level
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 ↗ - Bergensbanen
Northern Europe’s highest main line: over the bare Hardangervidda plateau at 1,237 m, through 182 tunnels.
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 ↗
More train routes in Norway.