Hi! Just wanted to say that the Follo Line has now opened and I've tried it! Even though it's designed for 250 kph speed limit, the trains max out at 200 kph. It was working pretty well until a fire happened close to Ski station and it is no out of service until December 27th. Long term, I think it is a great project that will be good for the region overall.
When the Swedes are done with the West coast line and the tunnel in Gothenburg they should really get together with Norway and rebuild the missing liink between Oslo and Gothenburg.
Norway is truly the issue there. The remaining Østfold will be extremely expensive to build (bad soil to build on) and too many parties are screaming for a more or less useless rail line to the northernmost parts of the country. Rail up there would be nice, but ridership would be way too low. Oslo-Bergen an Oslo-Europe would be nice. Also Oslo-Trondheim.
@@rowaystarco Actually that's kind of the point. Building there isn't meant so much to serve a existing population as to stimulate future population growth. Northern Norway has a lot of resources, making those areas more accessible through better infrastructure could stimulate growth there. Also, what capitalist urbanists often fail to understand is that sometimes services like to railways, schools, hospitals etc are there to unlock more potential tax revenue, *not* to be profitable or even "efficient" themselves. For instance that smallest party of ours right now exists because urbanists failed to realize that all of eastern Finnmark being without a hospital with a ER and a maternity ward that doesn't require passing a mountain that's often blocked in winter in order to access just is just unacceptable. And if that was the case people there would be forced to move away in order to feel safe. Yes, having cities is important. Like in all countries ours are the main economic drivers in Norway. However we're never going to be able to compete with big cities like London, Paris, Tokyo or New York anyway. Norways competitive edges is among other things our countryside. Low population yet still supported by a good infrastructure. That's good for tourism, it's good for resource extraction, and it increases the diversity in the country, since people will think differently in Oslo then in say Finnmark or Hitra or wherever. Having more ways of thinking is good for our creativity. It has already been proven that innovation is higher when you mix *different* people. In Oslo that is covered mainly by immigration, and we need more of that. But by cultivating our countryside we also increase the number of people available who have different backgrounds from *within* the country. Having as many *different* points of view as possible is valuable. And that's why our electoral system has such a big focus on giving low population areas more representation and also on ensuring that many different viewpoints are represented through proportionality. It makes our parliament and goverment *better*. And railways and other services to the north is a part of that. Nurturing rural Norway. To see the consequences of *not* doing so just look to Sweden. Rural Sweden is practically abandoned compared to rural Norway. And it's harming the political discord there among other things...
@@rowaystarco The low lying farming areas around Oslo isn't what made Norway, Norway. Most of the country is what it is because we where hard working farmers who couldn't survive on farming alone but had to supplement our diet with hunting, fishing, gathering berries, mushrooms etc, and raiding/trading with others in order to simply survive. But also, because the land was so hard we had to work together and look out for each other. Once gathered into a larger nation we kept using the "Leidang" till we where defeated by the Hanseatic League, even as other countries started using professional armies funded by taxation. With all the resources limited we learned the wisdom of moderation. Not too much or too little. That balance is what made us work as a nation. That culture fostered in *rural* Norway. Oslo is important. But not more so then the rest of the country.
@@Luredreier Not going to reply to everything here, but I'm not really disagreeing with you. There's absolutely a lot of natural resources in the northern parts of Norway, but that currently doesn't justify a massively expensive passenger rail line that will serve very few people. It could however be beneficial to build a new line to Sweden. The most important push for the smaller rural areas in say Finnmark is the electrification of the short range airplane routes (kortbanenettet) Cheaper and more regular flights will be much needed for these routes and they will be green as well. Even if we do build rail to Tromsø, it will never serve all the small towns in the North, they will still rely on roads and kortbanenettet (planes). Our districts are absolutely important, but we have no idea how much a train line to Tromsø will cost us. We are a rich country, but our funds are not unlimited. If we want to reduce/remove planes from domestic routes, it's the flights to Oslo that must be removed. Trondheim- Oslo, Bergen-Oslo, Stavanger-Oslo. This isn't really about "loving Oslo" but realizing the fact that almost all domestic flights go between Oslo and the other bigger cities. Ringeriksbanen will hopefully start construction in 2022 and will reduce travel time between Oslo-Bergen with an hour and also provide faster rail for the Ringerike region, that absolutely has growth potential. As for Sweden, they have done pretty good for themselves, even without the oil. Their innovation rate is much higher than in Norway, at least historically. IKEA, Spotify, Mojang (Minecraft), Ericsson, Volvo, H&M. Norway is still depending to much on oil to pay our bills and new wind parks for green energy are meeting a lot of resistance. I agree our districts are important, but exactly what is the most important they will contribute with in your opinion?
Im watching this as I go through the Follo tunnel. It has made my new commuting between Ski and downtown Oslo faster than my previous commute inside Oslo.
The Follo High Speed Line is one projects that shows what is key to have high capacity rail transport. Having railway where freight and passenger railway operate at two tracks gives major problems. Due to having different operating speeds, the headway between a passenger train with higher speed and a freight train with lower speed needs to be far higher than trains operating at the same speed. This is also a problem that plaques high speed rail in Germany. Many high speed tracks operate freight and passenger service with two tracks. This affects speed, capacity and reliability immensely. Here, Norway shows how to do better
If overnight container trains use the Japanese maintenance free maglev at the same speed as daytime trains there is no problem and it reduces the daytime fare.
@@edwardbarnett6571 Japanese maglev? It's still under construction, unless you're talking about the urban Linimo! The Shinkansen is not maglev; it's conventional high-speed.
Yeah we sold our railway to the British, then our government decides to finance this bullshit for them on our tax money. Apparently rails are bad and it keeps getting deferred despite the king himself opening it. Administrations that were in charge to build it was corrupt and many, but nobody stands to be blamed. Here, Norway shows they are corrupt like everyone else
One of the big things is that the mountains on the other side of the oslo harbour is a fuel depo in case of war. They have huge cavities blasted out where fuel can be punped in so that they are not exposed to air attacks during wartimes. One of the technical challenges was to blast out the follo line tunnels as close to 5 meters away from these fuel depos. Source: I live in this part of oslo
a nice project to improved the connection from Oslo heading south-east alongside the coastline towards Sweden; Will be interesting to see how long it will take until e.g. the Nordland Line will finally be electrified - not sure but I think it's the only remaining main line which isn't electrified yet
really wish banenor would build national high-speed rail network cause rn a train journey between the four biggest cities take like 6-8 hours compared to a 50 min flight
Norway seems to be all about sustainable transport. Most electric cars in Europe, now high-speed rail is being built. Also, petrol prices are the highest in Norway compared to every country globally. Of course, Netherlands is better, as it has HSR, bicycles, public transport, etc.
"Of course, Netherlands is better, as it has HSR, bicycles, public transport, etc. " Norway has HSR already, and they have bicycles and public transport as well.
so if I'm understanding correctly, this project will provide new tracks for freight and long-distance passenger railways while the existing tracks will be left to short-distance passenger rail (what we in the US would call "commuter rail"), so the latter service can be expanded and all types of railways in this area can be operated more efficiently?
No. While the new tracks CAN accommodate freight trains when the old tracks close for maintenance, this will NOT be the normal operating procedure. The old tracks will be used by freight trains running at 80-100 km/h, AND local trains stopping at all stations, reaching 130km/h between stations, which given the station spacing also works out to an average speed around 80km/h. The new tracks will (normally) be used by fast passenger trains only, and has no stations before Ski. The new tracks will have 200km/h at the start and 250km/h when ERTMS is enabled. Today's passenger trains with limited stops will be discontinued, after the tunnel opens there will only be nonstop and full stopping trains. (The limited stop trains are today required for timetable reasons, since a non stop train after a full stopping train will require too large a gap in the timetable.) The full stopping trains (L2) will instead get a much higher frequency, and become more like a S-bahn like service. (There are also long term plans for a city center tunnel, which will give more stops in the city, north of the central station and enable Ski-Oslo trains to continue toward Lillestrøm further cementing a S-bahn-type service pattern for the local trains.) This is already the situation for the existing 4 track setup Oslo-Lillestrøm, which is also a long tunnel for the new tracks. Cargo trains are banned in the long tunnel. (And only fuel deliveries to the airport are allowed on the non tunnel parts of the Gardermoen line). There is a minimum speed (130km/h) for passenger trains wanting to use the tunnel, upper speed limit being 210km/h.
To be fair, this is not really HSR. I doubt the train will even manage to get above 200 km/h. The first 3 km from Oslo has limitations on speed, and there is also a maximum of 130 km/h past the Ski station (for a future HSR than will go directly to Sweden). The tracks between Ski and Moss (30 km further down the line) are fairly modern (built in the nineties), but not really HSR . some are built for 200 km/h, others for 160 km/t. In any case - the progress is extremely slow, but at least something is happening. The next section goes from Moss to Halden and is going to be super-duper expensive. Maybe, in 30 years time one can board the train in Oslo and go to Gothenburg in 180-200 km/t on average. Maybe it's HSR, I wouldn't know.
@@mortensimonsen1645 Bergen - Arna can go 200km/h, but it's a 10 minute ride. The next few stops WERE slated to get upgrades, but it was scrapped with the current budget constraints.
10:40 That iron ore freight train does not reach closer to Oslo than 1000 km (in Norway) or 850 km (in Sweden). It's not one of the freight trains that is helped by the Follo line.
Trains won't be able to reach 250 km/h for quite some time though. For the first, Norway doesn't have any trains that can reach speeds above 200/210 km/h except for the new Airport Express trains which can reach 245 I believe, and for the second ERTMS won't be installed in the beginning only traditional signaling with ATC. So while the physical infrastructure allows for 250 km/h the signaling system and rolling stock do not. Norway currently has multiple railway lines allowing for 250 km/h use but non of them have ERTMS and fast rollingstock.
At least it will be a smoother experience for the riders, i doubt they will rebuild the tracks when they Upgrade and just build now with the specifications for HSR
Fair point, and for now there probably isn't any high speed line extending from there to the border either. But at least they've completed possibly the most complicated part of the task of getting such a line to their capital. But till such times it's mostly a bit quicker extra capacity line I guess.
There is a EU law stating that all new railways or upgrade projects has to be built for at least 250km/h. That is why all the newer upgraded sections in Norway has been built with that standard. You are not required to have signalling supporting 250km/h, but the track and infrastructure has be built for it. And then you are allowed to upgrade the signalling later. Same is done in Sweden on Botniabanan. It is a single track 250km/h capable line "in the middle of nowhere".
Wow, never would I have guessed I would ever see a commercial for Harting. But here we are. Guess they figgured this channel has quite a nice audience 😅
A very expensive project. A 250 km/t line that no train will be able to use because of short distance, 60 km/t limit in the Oslo end and lack of high speed trainset. Lack of a new Oslo tunnel (the project is stopped because of lack of funds) means that very few new train slots will be able to use the capasity of the Blixtunnel and the Moss project (south of Oslo).
The k in Ski isn't silent. It's pronounced, just like in the activity of skiing. Indeed just say skiing, then remove the ing while keeping the first three letters.
sure they can; They simply move at more or less the same speeds and time slots are planned well to get all sorts of trains along; In my home town we had a set of tracks which was used by regional trains, regional express trains, inter city trains, inter city express and international passenger trains as well as freight trains; Works perfectly and all sorts of trains run on the same tracks
@@EnjoyFirefighting Very cool. I live in the United States and wonder how such a thing is possible. Of course here in the United States, the freight network is well over 100 years old and has lots of curves and at grade crossings. Are there any videos that explain how both share track? And what is the fastest speed a high-speed passenger train can travel in such a blended system?
@@asangwuaikein at least down here in Germany level crossings aren't that common any more; Many sections don't have any of them any more and in fact new ones may not be built, but it has to be a bridge or underpass instead. On such mixed use tracks high speed trains will usually not go at high speeds, at least not higher speeds than the regional express trains go. Might still be a reasonable speed of 75 mph to 87 mph they do on the track ... not high speed, but fast enough to get to places. Not as far as I know but maybe I find a video where you can see some good mixed train service
@@asangwuaikein I thinks it's not a good idea to share same track for passenger+ freight trains 🚆 it makes controlling really difficult. We use this system in India, but now we are working on Dedicated freight corridors and it's good.
It can of course, however, the bad side of that approach is that you can't have optimal and maximized capacity utilization. Simply, heterogeneous train paths (trains of different speeds) 'occupy' more 'space' in timetable - check out: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Punctuality-of-railway-operations-and-timetable-Goverde/3e39784410fcd067fe9d714f1c781982754eec11/figure/1 . Another issue is maintenance - freight trains do more wear and tear to the tracks, which means more maintenance (passenger high-speed trains require very strict track geometry).
I don't understand why this tunnel is so close to the others. Why does it not just go deeper to allow for more room and to use the tunnel boring machine to bore it? In Montreal they have a 3 stack of lines all underground and one on top of the next. It is called Barrie Uquam station. It is a magnificent work of engineering form the 60's. Perhaps they were drilling and blasting back then, I am not sure.
All new rail built in Europe has to be built for at least 250km/h. It is an EU law from the early 2000s. So the lowest you are allowed to build is 250km/h.
10:06 i was wondering since when Norwegians drove on the left, until i saw the image was mirrored. This seems like a ridiculously costly project that will never repay for itself. The only advantage i see is better connectivity to Sweden and subsequently Denmark/Germany. But travel increase from 22 to 11 minutes just seems ridiculous.
To me the main goal does not seem to be time reduction, but capacity increase. Even in the video it is made clear that this project allows significantly more trains to get into Oslo and alleviate road congestion/reduce road traffic in general. And AFAIK the Swedish government also wants to increase the usage of high speed trains, where it would seem that this project would be vital for a high speed line between Oslo and Stockholm and/or Gothenburg.
@@jlust6660Well whatever rewson yoi can think of, no other country would invest that big on such a low urban density. But they can do this because they invest their oil and gas revenue. So yes they can pay it, but that doesnt make it in itself a good investment. Keep in mind that the areas around Oslo arent that densely populated
@@austinpowersfasjer I'm not arguing whether or not they can pay for it, none of that excludes that the existing section of track was insufficient for the demand and as such that this would not be a meaningful project.
It's both speed and capacity increase. The current tracks into Oslo are already close to max capacity. Another major project is to increase the tracks in the tunnel going west of Oslo.
let me hear YOU pronouncing foreign city names in Norwegian. Guess what, even if names are written the same, city names like e.g. Oslo are pronounced quite different in e.g. Norwegian, English, German etc; Some city names are even partly or completly different in foreign languages
@@EnjoyFirefighting I think it's more about the fact that the narrator/writer did look up how to pronounce "Ski", which is sort of with a silent k.. but not like "si" in "Si Señor", but rather, as Donato286 said, more like a "she" or "schi" like in "Schiphol". It would have therefor been better to pronounce it like the english "Ski", since that is the actual language used in this video. That said, I think it's nice when people try to prounouce things the right way, but at the same time, I don't really care. Their own language way of saying the name is far better then saying it wrong in any and all languages... Also the fact that some cities like Wien/Vienna, Copenhagen/København, Beijing/Peking is a show of absolute disrespect running decades or even centruries back, and is not something anyone should strive for. At least people are trying to change their brains over from Kiev to Kyiv, but that took an invasion to fix (and some people are still trying to say "it's too late to change the name now, I'm _used_ to Kiev")
@@AFAndersen tbh I don't think it's disrespectful if a place is known under a different name in a different language. It's obvious with some city names (even greater differences can be seen in the names of a country; Even car brands sometimes intentionally find a different name to sell a car abroad as the original one wouldn't quite fit into that language or wouldn't sell well). Thus e.g. many cities have special letters which might not even exist in most other languages like e.g. Ä / Ö / Ü / Æ, Ø, Å etc. Or it might be too difficult to pronounce, or it has a historical background. Thus e.g. my former home town in Germany had 27 different city names throughout the centuries before ending up with the current one, and over a handfull of the names are entirely different and don't share similarities while others only had minor differences. To me it's obvious that not every name makes it into foreign languages as well, and thus e.g. in Italian my city is still called the same like it was named a long time ago, one of the 27 earlier names.
why not add a smaller vacum tunnel for deliery of goods parallel yp it, vacum no vcacum ,and automed small delivery tunnel would get rid or lorries and truck delivery
As a norwegian living in the west this is honestly what i see one as norways most useless projects the commute from oslo to ski before teh follobanen were 22 minutes long now they are 12 here in teh west all infrsstructure is absolutely horrible becasue of a lack of investment from the government in oslo and i dont see on that as fair beacuse norway got rich from oil whic is only found along norways west and north coast but they barely get to use any of that money on their own instead it all goes to some stupid intercity oslo trains and new motorway in oslo and new city part in oslo evrything goes to oslo oslp is just a massive waste of momey look at norways west coast and you see major cities like kristiansand sandnes stavanger haugesund and bergen yet ther is no rail at all there even tho they are so close together. I live in bergen nd it takes about 5 hours to go to stqvnger by car which is fqr to long if tehy only had used this money on a new lien between bergen and stvanger i would have been a lot more satisfied with my government.
Often times being a sub power can help you prioritize important projects such as the video presentation. And projects are done effectively, on time and on budget. The United States can learn from the Swedens.
The US can certainly learn from the Swedes but this project is neither in Sweden, nor on time or on budget. Oslo is Norway's capital. The main contractors were Spanish and Italian companies. The Italian one ran into troubles and a Norwegian one replaced it. Cost increased from 11 billion Nkr when work started in 2015, to 30.7 billion in 2021. Opening will be 1 year late.
@@qolspony European borders are complex and mobile. Up to 1905, Norway was united with Sweden. You had the details wrong but the bottom line right. The 22 km Follo tunnel is close to completion and will cost less than $4 bn, a bargain in comparison with NEC projects. $4 bn is already asked for the less than 6 km Baltimore & Potomac doubling with 3.2 km in tunnel. The 18 km Gateway program over marshy NJ land and under the Hudson River through a 3 km tunnel is predicted to cost $13.4 bn for a simple entry in NY Penn Station.
Well first of all the way he sats ski os just so wrong and second, while they build new usless high speed tracks no trains can use the north of Norway dont got no train connections at all...
no middle tracks Devided by a wind and soundscreen for Highspeed express lines accelerating out of oslo, at SKI !!!? you cant have 200km/h+ (250km/h proposed) trains riding by the platforms, 6 platorms, 2 tunnel tracks? no! 2 tunnel tracks splitthing in 4 stopping traccks with platforms and in the middle, 300kmh skip/express tracks devided by fences
Hi! Just wanted to say that the Follo Line has now opened and I've tried it! Even though it's designed for 250 kph speed limit, the trains max out at 200 kph. It was working pretty well until a fire happened close to Ski station and it is no out of service until December 27th. Long term, I think it is a great project that will be good for the region overall.
Now until February 12th. I have tried it too
When the Swedes are done with the West coast line and the tunnel in Gothenburg they should really get together with Norway and rebuild the missing liink between Oslo and Gothenburg.
Agreed.
That region has population growth if I don't remember wrong.
Norway is truly the issue there. The remaining Østfold will be extremely expensive to build (bad soil to build on) and too many parties are screaming for a more or less useless rail line to the northernmost parts of the country. Rail up there would be nice, but ridership would be way too low. Oslo-Bergen an Oslo-Europe would be nice. Also Oslo-Trondheim.
@@rowaystarco Actually that's kind of the point.
Building there isn't meant so much to serve a existing population as to stimulate future population growth.
Northern Norway has a lot of resources, making those areas more accessible through better infrastructure could stimulate growth there.
Also, what capitalist urbanists often fail to understand is that sometimes services like to railways, schools, hospitals etc are there to unlock more potential tax revenue, *not* to be profitable or even "efficient" themselves.
For instance that smallest party of ours right now exists because urbanists failed to realize that all of eastern Finnmark being without a hospital with a ER and a maternity ward that doesn't require passing a mountain that's often blocked in winter in order to access just is just unacceptable.
And if that was the case people there would be forced to move away in order to feel safe.
Yes, having cities is important.
Like in all countries ours are the main economic drivers in Norway.
However we're never going to be able to compete with big cities like London, Paris, Tokyo or New York anyway.
Norways competitive edges is among other things our countryside.
Low population yet still supported by a good infrastructure.
That's good for tourism, it's good for resource extraction, and it increases the diversity in the country, since people will think differently in Oslo then in say Finnmark or Hitra or wherever.
Having more ways of thinking is good for our creativity.
It has already been proven that innovation is higher when you mix *different* people.
In Oslo that is covered mainly by immigration, and we need more of that.
But by cultivating our countryside we also increase the number of people available who have different backgrounds from *within* the country.
Having as many *different* points of view as possible is valuable.
And that's why our electoral system has such a big focus on giving low population areas more representation and also on ensuring that many different viewpoints are represented through proportionality.
It makes our parliament and goverment *better*.
And railways and other services to the north is a part of that.
Nurturing rural Norway.
To see the consequences of *not* doing so just look to Sweden.
Rural Sweden is practically abandoned compared to rural Norway.
And it's harming the political discord there among other things...
@@rowaystarco The low lying farming areas around Oslo isn't what made Norway, Norway.
Most of the country is what it is because we where hard working farmers who couldn't survive on farming alone but had to supplement our diet with hunting, fishing, gathering berries, mushrooms etc, and raiding/trading with others in order to simply survive.
But also, because the land was so hard we had to work together and look out for each other.
Once gathered into a larger nation we kept using the "Leidang" till we where defeated by the Hanseatic League, even as other countries started using professional armies funded by taxation.
With all the resources limited we learned the wisdom of moderation.
Not too much or too little.
That balance is what made us work as a nation.
That culture fostered in *rural* Norway.
Oslo is important.
But not more so then the rest of the country.
@@Luredreier Not going to reply to everything here, but I'm not really disagreeing with you. There's absolutely a lot of natural resources in the northern parts of Norway, but that currently doesn't justify a massively expensive passenger rail line that will serve very few people. It could however be beneficial to build a new line to Sweden. The most important push for the smaller rural areas in say Finnmark is the electrification of the short range airplane routes (kortbanenettet) Cheaper and more regular flights will be much needed for these routes and they will be green as well. Even if we do build rail to Tromsø, it will never serve all the small towns in the North, they will still rely on roads and kortbanenettet (planes). Our districts are absolutely important, but we have no idea how much a train line to Tromsø will cost us. We are a rich country, but our funds are not unlimited.
If we want to reduce/remove planes from domestic routes, it's the flights to Oslo that must be removed. Trondheim- Oslo, Bergen-Oslo, Stavanger-Oslo. This isn't really about "loving Oslo" but realizing the fact that almost all domestic flights go between Oslo and the other bigger cities. Ringeriksbanen will hopefully start construction in 2022 and will reduce travel time between Oslo-Bergen with an hour and also provide faster rail for the Ringerike region, that absolutely has growth potential.
As for Sweden, they have done pretty good for themselves, even without the oil. Their innovation rate is much higher than in Norway, at least historically. IKEA, Spotify, Mojang (Minecraft), Ericsson, Volvo, H&M.
Norway is still depending to much on oil to pay our bills and new wind parks for green energy are meeting a lot of resistance. I agree our districts are important, but exactly what is the most important they will contribute with in your opinion?
Im watching this as I go through the Follo tunnel. It has made my new commuting between Ski and downtown Oslo faster than my previous commute inside Oslo.
The Follo High Speed Line is one projects that shows what is key to have high capacity rail transport.
Having railway where freight and passenger railway operate at two tracks gives major problems. Due to having different operating speeds, the headway between a passenger train with higher speed and a freight train with lower speed needs to be far higher than trains operating at the same speed.
This is also a problem that plaques high speed rail in Germany. Many high speed tracks operate freight and passenger service with two tracks. This affects speed, capacity and reliability immensely.
Here, Norway shows how to do better
If overnight container trains use the Japanese maintenance free maglev at the same speed as daytime trains there is no problem and it reduces the daytime fare.
@@edwardbarnett6571 Japanese maglev? It's still under construction, unless you're talking about the urban Linimo! The Shinkansen is not maglev; it's conventional high-speed.
@@موسى_7 I was replying to someone who said it is best to seperate freight and passenger trains.
Yeah we sold our railway to the British, then our government decides to finance this bullshit for them on our tax money. Apparently rails are bad and it keeps getting deferred despite the king himself opening it. Administrations that were in charge to build it was corrupt and many, but nobody stands to be blamed.
Here, Norway shows they are corrupt like everyone else
One of the big things is that the mountains on the other side of the oslo harbour is a fuel depo in case of war. They have huge cavities blasted out where fuel can be punped in so that they are not exposed to air attacks during wartimes. One of the technical challenges was to blast out the follo line tunnels as close to 5 meters away from these fuel depos.
Source: I live in this part of oslo
Thanks for this interesting fact
At 7:32 you can see "Eikeberg oljelager" in turquoise..
What mountains😂
a nice project to improved the connection from Oslo heading south-east alongside the coastline towards Sweden; Will be interesting to see how long it will take until e.g. the Nordland Line will finally be electrified - not sure but I think it's the only remaining main line which isn't electrified yet
Solørbanen, rørosbanen and raumabanen is still diesel
really wish banenor would build national high-speed rail network cause rn a train journey between the four biggest cities take like 6-8 hours compared to a 50 min flight
Bergensbanen is being upgraded slowly.
But with the current budget cuts, it's no longer a certain thing.
Merry Christmas for the entire Railways Explained team! ⛄☃️🎄
Same to you! 🎄⛄
Nice to see a video from my Country, Thank you @RailwaysExplained. :D
Merry Christmas :)
Glad you like it 🙂
Merry Christmas 🎄
It has been opened few days ago. Total cost around 3.7 billion usd.
7:32 there's a loop-de-loop? Awesome!
Thank you for your education about trains
Our pleasure!
There's a new feature in TH-cam called chapters. You can split the video into chapters, which are sections of a video.
Norway seems to be all about sustainable transport.
Most electric cars in Europe, now high-speed rail is being built. Also, petrol prices are the highest in Norway compared to every country globally.
Of course, Netherlands is better, as it has HSR, bicycles, public transport, etc.
"Of course, Netherlands is better, as it has HSR, bicycles, public transport, etc. "
Norway has HSR already, and they have bicycles and public transport as well.
so if I'm understanding correctly, this project will provide new tracks for freight and long-distance passenger railways while the existing tracks will be left to short-distance passenger rail (what we in the US would call "commuter rail"), so the latter service can be expanded and all types of railways in this area can be operated more efficiently?
No. While the new tracks CAN accommodate freight trains when the old tracks close for maintenance, this will NOT be the normal operating procedure. The old tracks will be used by freight trains running at 80-100 km/h, AND local trains stopping at all stations, reaching 130km/h between stations, which given the station spacing also works out to an average speed around 80km/h. The new tracks will (normally) be used by fast passenger trains only, and has no stations before Ski. The new tracks will have 200km/h at the start and 250km/h when ERTMS is enabled. Today's passenger trains with limited stops will be discontinued, after the tunnel opens there will only be nonstop and full stopping trains. (The limited stop trains are today required for timetable reasons, since a non stop train after a full stopping train will require too large a gap in the timetable.) The full stopping trains (L2) will instead get a much higher frequency, and become more like a S-bahn like service. (There are also long term plans for a city center tunnel, which will give more stops in the city, north of the central station and enable Ski-Oslo trains to continue toward Lillestrøm further cementing a S-bahn-type service pattern for the local trains.)
This is already the situation for the existing 4 track setup Oslo-Lillestrøm, which is also a long tunnel for the new tracks. Cargo trains are banned in the long tunnel. (And only fuel deliveries to the airport are allowed on the non tunnel parts of the Gardermoen line). There is a minimum speed (130km/h) for passenger trains wanting to use the tunnel, upper speed limit being 210km/h.
@@GormHornbori thanks for the explanation!
Srećan Božić guys!
Just a super small, unimportant correction. Ski is pronounced like English "she" not "sea".
Hello from California. Let me get this straight... it is possible to propose HSR and then actually build it? Amazing!
only in the capital region lol
To be fair, this is not really HSR. I doubt the train will even manage to get above 200 km/h. The first 3 km from Oslo has limitations on speed, and there is also a maximum of 130 km/h past the Ski station (for a future HSR than will go directly to Sweden). The tracks between Ski and Moss (30 km further down the line) are fairly modern (built in the nineties), but not really HSR . some are built for 200 km/h, others for 160 km/t. In any case - the progress is extremely slow, but at least something is happening. The next section goes from Moss to Halden and is going to be super-duper expensive. Maybe, in 30 years time one can board the train in Oslo and go to Gothenburg in 180-200 km/t on average. Maybe it's HSR, I wouldn't know.
@@mortensimonsen1645
Bergen - Arna can go 200km/h, but it's a 10 minute ride.
The next few stops WERE slated to get upgrades, but it was scrapped with the current budget constraints.
Please make a video about rail baltica
Very interesting project. Thank you! Do you know which manufacturers provided the tunnel boring machines?
EPC Contracts for tunnel construction are is signed with Acciona-Ghella Joint Venture.
10:40 That iron ore freight train does not reach closer to Oslo than 1000 km (in Norway) or 850 km (in Sweden). It's not one of the freight trains that is helped by the Follo line.
Trains won't be able to reach 250 km/h for quite some time though.
For the first, Norway doesn't have any trains that can reach speeds above 200/210 km/h except for the new Airport Express trains which can reach 245 I believe, and for the second ERTMS won't be installed in the beginning only traditional signaling with ATC.
So while the physical infrastructure allows for 250 km/h the signaling system and rolling stock do not.
Norway currently has multiple railway lines allowing for 250 km/h use but non of them have ERTMS and fast rollingstock.
At least it will be a smoother experience for the riders, i doubt they will rebuild the tracks when they Upgrade and just build now with the specifications for HSR
Fair point, and for now there probably isn't any high speed line extending from there to the border either. But at least they've completed possibly the most complicated part of the task of getting such a line to their capital.
But till such times it's mostly a bit quicker extra capacity line I guess.
There is a EU law stating that all new railways or upgrade projects has to be built for at least 250km/h. That is why all the newer upgraded sections in Norway has been built with that standard. You are not required to have signalling supporting 250km/h, but the track and infrastructure has be built for it. And then you are allowed to upgrade the signalling later. Same is done in Sweden on Botniabanan. It is a single track 250km/h capable line "in the middle of nowhere".
@@sjokomelk I know
Very enjoyable and understandable video. Sincerely congrats
Wow, never would I have guessed I would ever see a commercial for Harting. But here we are.
Guess they figgured this channel has quite a nice audience 😅
A very expensive project. A 250 km/t line that no train will be able to use because of short distance, 60 km/t limit in the Oslo end and lack of high speed trainset. Lack of a new Oslo tunnel (the project is stopped because of lack of funds) means that very few new train slots will be able to use the capasity of the Blixtunnel and the Moss project (south of Oslo).
Thanks for the interesting video👍
Great video, as always
Glad you enjoyed it
Interesting Video. Is it possible to make such a video about the BBT Brenner Base Tunnel.
It is on our To do list 😁
Just one project of dozens going on in Europe is of a larger scope than the entirety of infra projects in America.
Is it still closed for repairs? I can not find any information about that
interesting stuff. thank you
The k in Ski isn't silent.
It's pronounced, just like in the activity of skiing.
Indeed just say skiing, then remove the ing while keeping the first three letters.
In Norwegian it's pronounced like the English word "she"
@@maibhe6754 just like in German
Can freight rail share the same line as passenger rail? And if so where in the world does this occur and how do services get managed?
sure they can; They simply move at more or less the same speeds and time slots are planned well to get all sorts of trains along; In my home town we had a set of tracks which was used by regional trains, regional express trains, inter city trains, inter city express and international passenger trains as well as freight trains; Works perfectly and all sorts of trains run on the same tracks
@@EnjoyFirefighting Very cool. I live in the United States and wonder how such a thing is possible. Of course here in the United States, the freight network is well over 100 years old and has lots of curves and at grade crossings.
Are there any videos that explain how both share track? And what is the fastest speed a high-speed passenger train can travel in such a blended system?
@@asangwuaikein at least down here in Germany level crossings aren't that common any more; Many sections don't have any of them any more and in fact new ones may not be built, but it has to be a bridge or underpass instead.
On such mixed use tracks high speed trains will usually not go at high speeds, at least not higher speeds than the regional express trains go. Might still be a reasonable speed of 75 mph to 87 mph they do on the track ... not high speed, but fast enough to get to places.
Not as far as I know but maybe I find a video where you can see some good mixed train service
@@asangwuaikein I thinks it's not a good idea to share same track for passenger+ freight trains 🚆 it makes controlling really difficult. We use this system in India, but now we are working on Dedicated freight corridors and it's good.
It can of course, however, the bad side of that approach is that you can't have optimal and maximized capacity utilization. Simply, heterogeneous train paths (trains of different speeds) 'occupy' more 'space' in timetable - check out: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Punctuality-of-railway-operations-and-timetable-Goverde/3e39784410fcd067fe9d714f1c781982754eec11/figure/1 . Another issue is maintenance - freight trains do more wear and tear to the tracks, which means more maintenance (passenger high-speed trains require very strict track geometry).
can The infrastructure be showed of the The Netherlands?
Ski is pronounced like English she, or German schie
Could be this one of the most expensive railway project by km?
It is, definitely.
it reopened the 5th of march
I don't understand why this tunnel is so close to the others. Why does it not just go deeper to allow for more room and to use the tunnel boring machine to bore it? In Montreal they have a 3 stack of lines all underground and one on top of the next. It is called Barrie Uquam station. It is a magnificent work of engineering form the 60's. Perhaps they were drilling and blasting back then, I am not sure.
as the already existing tunnels, tubes and caverns are both above and beneath this tunnel so this one had to find the spot right in between those
If it went deeper then the approach to Oslo central station would be too steep probably.
cool
250km/h for only 22km?
It means the high-speed line will continue south, right? It cannot terminate at Ski, right?
Yes, the map at 1:41 shows the future plan. It's weird to say it terminates at Ski, I agree
All new rail built in Europe has to be built for at least 250km/h. It is an EU law from the early 2000s. So the lowest you are allowed to build is 250km/h.
10:06 i was wondering since when Norwegians drove on the left, until i saw the image was mirrored.
This seems like a ridiculously costly project that will never repay for itself. The only advantage i see is better connectivity to Sweden and subsequently Denmark/Germany. But travel increase from 22 to 11 minutes just seems ridiculous.
To me the main goal does not seem to be time reduction, but capacity increase. Even in the video it is made clear that this project allows significantly more trains to get into Oslo and alleviate road congestion/reduce road traffic in general. And AFAIK the Swedish government also wants to increase the usage of high speed trains, where it would seem that this project would be vital for a high speed line between Oslo and Stockholm and/or Gothenburg.
@@jlust6660Well whatever rewson yoi can think of, no other country would invest that big on such a low urban density. But they can do this because they invest their oil and gas revenue. So yes they can pay it, but that doesnt make it in itself a good investment. Keep in mind that the areas around Oslo arent that densely populated
@@austinpowersfasjer I'm not arguing whether or not they can pay for it, none of that excludes that the existing section of track was insufficient for the demand and as such that this would not be a meaningful project.
It's both speed and capacity increase. The current tracks into Oslo are already close to max capacity. Another major project is to increase the tracks in the tunnel going west of Oslo.
Well now I want Real Engineering to make a video about this too. This thing sounds absolutely nuts.
He misses a lot of things that are applied in real life. Not sure if he is a real practicing engineer.
@@AFlyingCookieLOL
He might just be simplifying for the sake of the videos.
1:34 Ski not Si
2:00 Ski not Si
2:20 Ski not Si
3:16 Ski not Si
3:47 Ski not Si
3:49 Ski not Si
4:54 Ski not Si
6:02 Ski not Si
8:33 Ski not Si
8:43 Ski not Si
It seems it's actually pronounced "she"
let me hear YOU pronouncing foreign city names in Norwegian. Guess what, even if names are written the same, city names like e.g. Oslo are pronounced quite different in e.g. Norwegian, English, German etc; Some city names are even partly or completly different in foreign languages
@@EnjoyFirefighting I think it's more about the fact that the narrator/writer did look up how to pronounce "Ski", which is sort of with a silent k.. but not like "si" in "Si Señor", but rather, as Donato286 said, more like a "she" or "schi" like in "Schiphol".
It would have therefor been better to pronounce it like the english "Ski", since that is the actual language used in this video.
That said, I think it's nice when people try to prounouce things the right way, but at the same time, I don't really care. Their own language way of saying the name is far better then saying it wrong in any and all languages...
Also the fact that some cities like Wien/Vienna, Copenhagen/København, Beijing/Peking is a show of absolute disrespect running decades or even centruries back, and is not something anyone should strive for. At least people are trying to change their brains over from Kiev to Kyiv, but that took an invasion to fix (and some people are still trying to say "it's too late to change the name now, I'm _used_ to Kiev")
@@AFAndersen tbh I don't think it's disrespectful if a place is known under a different name in a different language. It's obvious with some city names (even greater differences can be seen in the names of a country; Even car brands sometimes intentionally find a different name to sell a car abroad as the original one wouldn't quite fit into that language or wouldn't sell well).
Thus e.g. many cities have special letters which might not even exist in most other languages like e.g. Ä / Ö / Ü / Æ, Ø, Å etc.
Or it might be too difficult to pronounce, or it has a historical background. Thus e.g. my former home town in Germany had 27 different city names throughout the centuries before ending up with the current one, and over a handfull of the names are entirely different and don't share similarities while others only had minor differences. To me it's obvious that not every name makes it into foreign languages as well, and thus e.g. in Italian my city is still called the same like it was named a long time ago, one of the 27 earlier names.
@@EnjoyFirefighting
... Oslo is pronounced differently in Oslo, Stabekk, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø... :p
why not add a smaller vacum tunnel for deliery of goods parallel yp it, vacum no vcacum ,and automed small delivery tunnel would get rid or lorries and truck delivery
As a norwegian living in the west this is honestly what i see one as norways most useless projects the commute from oslo to ski before teh follobanen were 22 minutes long now they are 12 here in teh west all infrsstructure is absolutely horrible becasue of a lack of investment from the government in oslo and i dont see on that as fair beacuse norway got rich from oil whic is only found along norways west and north coast but they barely get to use any of that money on their own instead it all goes to some stupid intercity oslo trains and new motorway in oslo and new city part in oslo evrything goes to oslo oslp is just a massive waste of momey look at norways west coast and you see major cities like kristiansand sandnes stavanger haugesund and bergen yet ther is no rail at all there even tho they are so close together. I live in bergen nd it takes about 5 hours to go to stqvnger by car which is fqr to long if tehy only had used this money on a new lien between bergen and stvanger i would have been a lot more satisfied with my government.
Often times being a sub power can help you prioritize important projects such as the video presentation. And projects are done effectively, on time and on budget. The United States can learn from the Swedens.
The US can certainly learn from the Swedes but this project is neither in Sweden, nor on time or on budget. Oslo is Norway's capital. The main contractors were Spanish and Italian companies. The Italian one ran into troubles and a Norwegian one replaced it. Cost increased from 11 billion Nkr when work started in 2015, to 30.7 billion in 2021. Opening will be 1 year late.
@@alaindumas1824 sorry. I get these countries mixed up. Hmm. I was not aware of that.
@@qolspony European borders are complex and mobile. Up to 1905, Norway was united with Sweden. You had the details wrong but the bottom line right. The 22 km Follo tunnel is close to completion and will cost less than $4 bn, a bargain in comparison with NEC projects.
$4 bn is already asked for the less than 6 km Baltimore & Potomac doubling with 3.2 km in tunnel. The 18 km Gateway program over marshy NJ land and under the Hudson River through a 3 km tunnel is predicted to cost $13.4 bn for a simple entry in NY Penn Station.
Too bad it only lasted for 4 days before it broke lmao.
Norge!
Well first of all the way he sats ski os just so wrong and second, while they build new usless high speed tracks no trains can use the north of Norway dont got no train connections at all...
You do realize that return on investment is higher when population density is higher, or no?
The north of Norway has two train connections: The Nordland Line to Bodø and the Ofot Line to Narvik through Sweden.
Useless tracks? Northern Norway is way more useless, as the population density is extremely low and the population centres are scattered all around.
no middle tracks Devided by a wind and soundscreen for Highspeed express lines accelerating out of oslo, at SKI !!!? you cant have 200km/h+ (250km/h proposed) trains riding by the platforms, 6 platorms, 2 tunnel tracks? no! 2 tunnel tracks splitthing in 4 stopping traccks with platforms and in the middle, 300kmh skip/express tracks devided by fences
sure you can have high speed trains passing by at platforms ...
This is one of the few times when a computer generated voice would be better than the actual speaker.