Gardermoen Rail Link High Speed Line, Norway

The Gardermoen line is the first Norwegian high-speed rail line, a 66km link from the centre of Oslo northwards to Eidsvoll, serving en route the Norwegian capital's new Gardermoen airport.

Costing NOK 2 billion ($350 million), the Gardermoen line is designed for trains travelling at a maximum speed of 210km/h. It includes the longest railway tunnel in Norway, the 13.9km Romeriks tunnel.

The line's development stems from the government's decision in 1992 to build a completely new city airport, served by a dedicated high-speed rail link that it was hoped would carry 50% of air passengers and 40% of staff working at Gardermoen, a total of 25,000 rail journeys per day.

THE PROJECT

In 1992, NSB Gardermobanan was formed by the state-owned rail operator, NSB, to drive forward the airport rail link plan.

An initial ten-minute interval service is being operated from Oslo Sentral, with alternate trains extended beyond the airport to serve Asker. The 18km journey from city centre to airport takes just 19 minutes. Extensive links with local bus and taxi operators have also been forged, and partnerships with local businesses and hotels ensure that travel packages including the rail link are heavily promoted to visitors.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The railway is electrified at 15kV, laid to German ICE 200km/h standards, and is all double-track except for 3.5km close to the junction at Eidsvoll with the existing Norwegian State Railway's trunk line to Lillehammer and the north.

The section of line from Eidsvoll to Lillestrom via the airport is completely new and includes the Romeriks tunnel, just east of Starveien. The track-laying contract was awarded to Banverket Industridivisionen, a subsidiary of Sweden's state-owned rail infrastructure authority.

Construction and subsequent operation of the airport line has been entrusted to NSB Gardermobanen. Such was the scale of the Romeriks tunnel works, that a separate project organisation was formed to oversee them.

After some difficulties, technical installation works were completed in July 1998, in time for the start of operations in October.

ROLLING STOCK

The 16 new three-car class 71 EMU trains for Gardermoen services are derived from the Swedish SJ class X2-2, and will encourage the use of tilt trains elsewhere on the Norwegian railway network. The trains run at 10-minute headways between Gardermoen and the rail-air terminal at Oslo main station, with alternate trains calling at Lillestrom. Non-stop trains to Oslo will continue for a further 27km to Asker, west of the city, calling at four stations on the way. This will widen the range of destinations linked directly with the airport to cover 70% of the air passenger market.

The trains have a maximum speed of 210km/h (130mph), allowing the journey to be completed in 19 minutes.

Seating is arranged so that passengers can keep sight of the central luggage racks over each doorway. The units are air conditioned and fully pressure-sealed to eliminate discomfort when passing through tunnels at high speed. The earlier batch of trains were built so that they could be retrofitted with this technology if it proved successful on long-distance services.

Construction has been carried out by Adtranz subsidiary ABB Strommens, a domestic arm of this multi-national group.

SIGNALLING AND COMMUNICATIONS

The existing tracks used by the Gardermoen Airport service are some of the busiest in Norway. Because of this the Norwegian Rail Administration took the opportunity to replace all the old signal interlockings as the first phase of a project to carry out such work throughout the country's rail system.

This will simplify maintenance and achieve greater reliability and flexibility to cope with increased traffic demands in future. On-board monitoring of passengers boarding and alighting is made possible by television screens linked to external video cameras in each cab.

Adtranz Signal has also fitted each of the new trains with an automatic train protection system.

THE FUTURE

Airline passenger numbers travelling through Gardermoen Airport are expected to increase to 11.7 million in 2000, and to 16.8 million in the following ten years. Of these, half are expected to travel by train, giving the Gardermoen link a secure future.

The tilting derivative of the class 71 train, now designated class 73, is expected to have four cars instead of three, but be powered by the same traction package, and have the same 210km/h capability. These are earmarked for use on services between Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Stavanger.