The Flåm Railway Travels on One of the Most Beautiful Train Routes in the World

The fjord landscape in Norway is breathtaking by itself. But how about discovering it on one of the most beautiful trains in the world? With the Flåm Railway, this is possible. Known in Norway as Flåmsbana, the railway's route is about 12.5 miles long and goes from Flåm up to Myrdal.

The train has many elevation changes to tackle, starting at sea level at the Aurlandsfjord and ending 2,841 feet above at Myrdal. On the route, you'll pass through many tunnels because the path circumvents avalanche-prone areas in the Flåmsdalen and crosses the river several times, including over a bridge built exclusively for the Flåm Railway.

The construction of the Flåm Railway line began in 1923. Back then, the goal was to create a freight traffic connection from the Bergen line down to the Sognefjord. Laboriously, 18 out of the total 20 tunnels were built by hand, with workers taking an entire month for just one meter.

The construction of the Nåli Tunnel, stretching about 4,265 feet between Kårdal and Pinnalia, alone took eleven years. It was only thirteen years later that the first tracks could finally be laid. Freight traffic officially started on August 1, 1940. Passengers were first transported on the line about half a year later.

In the 1950s and 1960s, tourism saved the Flåm Railway from threatened closure. The interest of visitors to Norway increased year after year, and by 2013 more than 718,000 travelers used the Flåm Railway. Thus, it became one of the most visited tourist attractions in the country. In 2014, Lonely Planet crowned the train journey as the best in the world.

The Flåm Railway is not only one of Norway's top tourist attractions, but it is also one of the steepest standard-gauge adhesion railways. It sounds complicated, but it simply means that traction is achieved solely through the wheels' friction. With a gradient of 5.5% over most of the route, the train's wheels have quite a job.

The train cars still appear as they did back then, featuring a wood-colored finish and exuding the charm of days gone by. Along the route, you'll see farmlands, Norwegian villages with churches, and farms. The train makes a roughly five-minute photo stop at the Kjosfossen waterfall.

The Flåm Railway operates daily, and each one-way journey takes about 45 minutes. In Flåm, the first train departs at 9 a.m., and the last departs at 4:50 p.m. Schedule exceptions occur on December 24th and 25th, as well as December 31st and January 1st. From December to March, five trains run daily; in April, it is seven, and between May and September, the Flåm Railway departs nine times daily from Flåm to Myrdal. You can find the exact schedule here.

This popular attraction, however, comes at a price: a round trip costs 530 Norwegian kroner per person, which amounts to about 45 euros. If you want a one-way ticket, you can book it through the Norwegian transport provider VY. Here, the Flåm Railway is listed under the name R45 Myrdal, with tickets starting at 370 Norwegian kroner, or about 31 euros. In Myrdal, you can continue your train journey through Norway's spectacular landscapes with the Bergen line toward Oslo and Bergen.

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