Rail Trip to Lofoten in Norway

[TravellingPhil]

In addition to the planned engineering work, a bridge has collapsed north of Lillehammer. There have also been substantial issues with flooding further south, but that isn't causing too many issues just now. Looks like you can either get the bus to Lillehammer for the connection or do a slow regional-only train connection at Hamar right now. SJ Nord have been talking about running the night train via Røros, but I don't think there's any potential for running the day trains along that route.

I decided to do a bit of a tour around southern Sweden and Norway instead this year. It's a pity but this year's epic rain has caused too many issues on this route and the issues last month on the Swedish routes to the north - at this point it feels like trying to make the journey is eating up capacity for people who need to make the journey.

We've already decided to come back the same way via Narvik and Stockholm. Turns out this may have been the best decision anyway.

It is a shame what has happened, so much damage from one storm. Ironic that many interrailers went that way this summer to escape the extreme heat of southern Europe and ended up facing this instead.

The route I'm taking hasn't been without it's own problems either. The derailment at Hudiksvall looks like it caused quite a bit of line damage, but the Narvik sleeper trains seems to have returned to their normal route so if that's the case, that's an impressive quick repair. The Lulea sleeper seems to have suffered cancellations more from the storm damage...not sure why when the Narvik one can be diverted, must be to do with line capacity maybe?

Only just over a month now until we set off. An ambitious journey with potential problems; Germany have been talking about Autumn strikes on the railway and track works in Scandanavia are always a threat. But we'll pick our way through...we always do! I've got a couple of 'buffer' days available each side of the trip if I need to shuffle things around and I've gone as flexible as I possibly can with bookings.

 

[TravellingPhil]

Wow, and now I've just seen that Holland Norway lines have applied for suspension of payments are will not be operating or selling anymore tickets.

My decision to not come back via Oslo is looking more and more sensible. Such a shame though, it's a ferry link I would've taken another time.