Thamshavnsbanen

One rainy day in August





FANNREM








SVORKMO


LOKKEN
 I took a trip for Norway, and this time I reversed my usual route so I more or less started from Trondheim and drove southbound. The idea was to spend more time in Trondheim and take some pics from the docks and from Marieborg, which you will find at the Gallery-section. Naturally, I wanted to take images from Thamshavnbanen, which is for me pretty interesting. In scenewise, it looks to me like a narrow gauge line in Switzerland relocated to North.

At the northern terminal the weather was too lousy to take any meaningful photos, so that is why the few scenes shown here are a bit of the coast, where the rain was not that heavy.

Any way i got a few images ogf on line stations of Fannrem and Svorkmo, the latter interesting because the tracks are pretty much intact or as the reconstruction of the line, care was taken to give that impression. I donīt know much of the operations at Svorkmo, but I don't believe that it would be a wild guess that the site was used as a helper terminal and this might be the reason for that engine shed. Swiss looks? oyeah...

At the southern terminal at Lokken, is the location of operations and now adays, there is a nice museum of the mining operations and railway. The yard itself is more complax than I saw elsewhere on the line, actually it aws consisted of two yards. Click here for a rather poor photo of the trackplan taken of the yard.




















When I pulled up to the museum an excursion train with a combine and third class coach coupled behind engine #5 was prepared for an excursion of what it seemed to be local and county politians. At the museum there was a behive of activity to inform and entertain them. The museum itself is interesting mix of the history of the mining operations at the area and half of it is devoted to the Thamshavns line.
The railroad hall is filled with photos and some models around two tracks of original equipment that are used on the line. Unfortunally I could have used a wider wideangle lences to take some decent photos of the stuff. But what a hell, the engine pictured here is an interesting one built by ASEA in Sweden and served to the end of the operations at the seventies.

The wood bodied passanger cars were common in Scandinavia, and in Norway they had a it more American looks, as contrary in Sweden much of earlier trucked cars came from US in the last decade of the 19.th century. The craftmanship, during the time is respectable compared to the what is rolling on rails today. The green car is the lines diner car, which is late day innovation to haust VIP.s and used on some excursions. The model of the ship is interesting to those of you who are looking for and small enough prototype for a coastal ship for mixed service.
Here some links about the line and the museum.
Orkla Industrial Museum.

Thamshavnbanen.

NJK on Thamshavnsbanen.(in Norwegian only)

Teknisk og historisk om Ohma.(in Norwegian only)

Remembrance of Trains Past.
Modelbuilding of Thamshavnsbanen in Om & plenty of historical images.




Webdesign & Photos:Ollie Ahokas, e-mail: Olliehokas@.yahoo.se.