Switch Back Tunnels
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Romsdalen is dominated by its powerful mountains and their precipitous mountainsides made the building of roads and railways difficult. Clever engineers had to therefore solve those challenges, so that the trains could navigate the demanding climbs. We are now entering the Stavem tunnel, where the railway track turns 180 degrees and we will drive back the way we came. This is known as a switchback tunnel and is designed to reduce the gradient so that the old steam locomotives could manage the strenuous hills. The line’s other switchback tunnel is located between Kylling Bridge and Verma station. This well over 100 year old tunnel is 1,3 kilometres long and was for the most part built using the raw muscle power of two work teams, one working at each end of the tunnel. It was only towards the end of construction that machine drilling was used. When the work teams finally met in 1922, after 9 years of construction, there was only a few centimetres of deviation. Both the planning and construction were therefore an unparalleled feat.