Mixed train pulled by steam loco

[RobertInOntario]

Excellent shots! I assume this was a heritage train on an excursion or some kind of demonstration train?

Rob

Museum railroad - only 2 miles or so left of the original 30 miles of railroad.

Originally it was a a small feeder railroad, mainly for agricultural goods and lumber, but also doing passenger traffic. Known under the nickname "Tertitten" (derived from "tertiary railroad"). Financed by the local communities along the line to connect the Kongsvinger Line at Sorumsand with lake Skullerud 30 miles to the east. From Skullerud there were lakes, rivers and canals all the way down to Halden on the south coast, right next to the border with Sweden. A tourist steamer went from Halden to the terminus at Skullerud.

Was in normal traffic from 1898 to 1960, when it was abandoned. Privat company until 1945, government run from 1945 until 1960 (from the 1930s the competition with trucks and busses has started killing of the traffic base). In 1966, enthusiasts reopened the section from the outskirts of Sorumsand to Fossum as a museum railroad, and it has been run as a museum railroad ever since.

Normally runs 3-4 trips each Sunday from the Sorumsand fair in early June until end of August, plus various extra tours - kindergartens, schools, visiting rail enthusiasts, and at various holidays - the New Year's tour e.g. pretty popular. Normal consist is 3-4 passenger cars and the engines, brimming full with people (on Sundays with good weather). Usually you only see freight cars on the MOW trains, which normally is pulled by their small gasoline locomotive.

Back in the day they had some pioneering concepts - like transloading from narrow gauge to normal gauge at Sorumsand using a portal crane lifting containers made of wood between narrow gauge cars and normal gauge cars. Portal crane is still there. And some weird traffic - like the containers of poop from outhouses in Oslo (in the pre-WC days) bound for farmers fields way up the line - not very popular loads to handle for the employees to handle, I am sure.

Today, the site at Sorumsand has a station, an engine shed, another shed, the portal crane etc. Trackage looks like this:



Smile,
Stein

Thanks! It kind of reminds me of a narrow gauge steam and diesel train that we have in Huntsville, about a 2 hours drive north of Toronto. IIRC, this train (<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.portageflyer.org">www.portageflyer.org</a><!-- w -->) used to transport people between two lakes in northern Ontario during the first half of the 20th century. It now operates as a tourist train on a very short length of track. It's quite neat to see the steam train operating. I even rode on this train as a child in the 1960s when it was operating as a tourist steam train in a different part of Ontario.