The construction of Flåm Railway

"How are you going to build a railroad here?" - A foreign railway engineer, who looked out over the Flåm Valley. If the Bergen Railway was a challenge, the Flåm Railway was no less challenging. The risk of landslides and the difficult terrain means that the Flåm Railway has 20 tunnels on a total stretch of 20.2 kilometres and with 5.7 kilometres being tunnels. This was one of the reasons why the work on the track took so long, since 18 of the tunnels were drilled by hand. They embarked on the longest tunnel, and it took almost 11 years to build. The rock rubble was transported out of the tunnels by horse-drawn rails, and from there transported on by horse and carriage. Machine drilling was used in only two of the tunnels, without the progress being much faster. From the start, the workforce was just over 120 men and quickly rose to 280. In addition to the permanent employees, there were 400-500 workers in total during the summer seasons, but the number was reduced year by year, to 60-70 in the great depression years. The Flåm Railway, in rough surroundings, with major topographical and geological challenges, and all the demanding technical and physical work, was an outstanding engineering achievement.