I must be out of my mind.
Back ages ago I had some mad scheme in mind to plan this trip around stupid goals while making complete use of (or wasting, depending on how you like your travel) my 50th Anniversary purchase. I had considered going to Heidelberg to buy some ink for my Lamy fountain pen from the factory shop, nipping to somewhere in Croatia to buy a postcard, then sending it from Narvik — that kind of thing.
This is how my mind works when nobody places sensible restrictions on me and sometimes it’s frankly terrifying, but yesterday I was sitting around in the morning wondering what to do next and thought that while I’m here I might as well just pop to Bodø to see what all the fuss is about. This was hugely inspired by a previously-referenced article in the i about Norway’s longest railway journey which is probably more readable than this is going to be.
Initially I was disheartened to find the ticket office at Trondheim S closed (closing time on a Saturday a slightly odd 17:10) and I couldn’t get the machines to issue a ticket for an Interrail pass, so I was in two minds as to whether use day thirty of my two-month ticket as an opportunity to turn round and go home, or binge on a last hurrah and an opportunity to go a bit mad. Shortly after I learned that the VY customer service line stays open to 9pm on Saturdays and that pressing 9 puts you in the queue to speak to someone in English, my fate was sealed; my phone pinged with an email containing a reservation for window seats on this morning’s 07:58 train to Bodø and the returning 21:10.
For free!
I reasoned it would be churlish not to, frankly, given my pangs of regret at not seeing the Saab museum and the simple fact that I am currently around 3000 kilometres closer to the Arctic Circle than usual. I phoned a friend to squeal at her of my excitement and after some cajoling (I blame her) it was decided I’d upgrade my return trip and come back in a sleeper compartment for the princely sum of 1000 Norwegian krone, about 87€. To hell with the expense — I’m in far too deep at this point — this turned out to be an absolute bargain at 43,50€ each way, cheaper even than a return to Paris and infinitely more enjoyable. It was was worth every centime.
During the initial booking process, the nice Norwegian man on the other end of the phone apologised profusely for not being able to get me a window seat in the direction of travel but ultimately this did not matter, for my individual window was huge and it felt as if I could see everything. Also, and trust me on this one, as there was no reservation fee for a first class Interrail pass-holder, no further thought is necessary. None. Time the trains properly and the 24-hour 1,458-kilometre round trip will use just one travel day, although perhaps Bodø would like to see tourists do more than buy a fridge magnet in a supermarket and then bugger off to whence they came.
I walked to the station this morning (still trying to mitigate the night out in Oslo) and got there to find the train waiting on the platform and the coffee machines already working. I was in seat 40 in coach one at the back of the train which was pulled by one mean-looking diesel locomotive with its own snow-plough. This left the window at the end of the trailing carriage completely unobscured so it was possible to enjoy views from three angles during every glorious second of the nine hours and thirty six minutes of unbridled joy.
It would be an understatement to suggest I was quietly euphoric as the train pulled out of Trondheim on time, but as was the case with the journey from Oslo, I had already consumed quite a lot of caffeine and sugar by the time we started moving so my excitedly panting at the window like a backward spaniel might not have all been train-induced. The coffee machines are next to a standing area with extra-large windows if the individual one assigned to the seat is insufficient.
I find there’s always a sense of everything being most satisfactory indeed when that first surge of movement is felt as a train moves out of the station and the whole inevitability of the journey takes hold. If you’ve forgotten anything, there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s not as if you can go back for something; you have no choice but to melt into the huge comfy seat and let the soporific rocking do its magic as outside the window, the world gets whiter and colder. Of course, every now and then you can get up and run to the back of the train as it enters one of the 154 tunnels along the route or graze on the free breakfast that’s served on the morning service.
I managed to restrain myself when the woman a few seats down started watching the Formula 1 on her phone without headphones, because the noise was mostly drowned out by the oinking of her travelling companion’s laugh which, after two or three hours, had gone from being desperately irritating to remarkably endearing. At some point the lad in the seat across the aisle from me asked if I was a tourist (perhaps confirming his worst suspicions) and talked to me for a good hour or so about life as a student in Trondheim and his plans for his Easter holidays, which mostly seemed to be hooning about on a snowmobile.
This was something of a wake-up call as I’d forgotten about Easter and the chaos it will bring to travel, but there was nothing I could do about it from where I was sitting except sigh and watch the azure-blue frozen waterfalls and shiny-white mountains slide past the window.
My occasional dashes to the back of the train continued, but by Trofors the view out of the back of the train was starting to become obscured by the snow thrown into the air by the train and the resulting frozen water droplets on the rear window.
My new companion was, I think, amused by the levels of excitement I was clearly unable to contain. He asked, perhaps with a hint of irony, what I was taking photographs of and when I explained that I was taking photographs of snow, looked at me as if I was mad. He asked me which snow I meant (confirming my suspicions he was taking the piss), then amused himself by acknowledging the presence of “some” snow that was barely worth putting a jacket on for. In sincerity, however, he congratulated me for getting a trip with decent weather; the scenery is not always so beautiful along this route as ealier in the year it’s entirely possible for the snow to be higher than the train on both sides. Springtime is a good time.
Every now and then a tiny little tree passed the window looking cute, until the realisation that it’s just the top of a bigger tree poking out of a drift. On the mountain-sides across the various fjords — some frozen, some not — they sit like little models.
At 729 kilometres in length, the Nordlandsbanen is Norway’s longest railway line and the only line in Norway completely served by diesel-only locomotives. It is a single line that passes over 293 bridges, goes through 154 tunnels and crosses into the Arctic Circle as it runs over the Saltfjellet mountain at 66° 33′ north. The Arctic Circle visitor centre can clearly be seen on the right side of the train as it trudges forever onwards, tootling its horn at passing wildlife as it goes.
Since the building was built people have understood that the actual line drifts throughout the year and doesn’t pass directly through the middle of the centre, but don’t let science get in the way of a good squee. I’m not quite sure when it happened, exactly, perhaps because I wasn’t watching as hard as I thought I was, but after many spectacular hours of white frosted mountains sprinkled with matchstick trees and dotted with hardy wooden houses, everything disappears and you’re left looking at a barren but magnificent white wasteland devoid of much but tracks revealing the presence of trains, beasts, and humans. Occasionally a person on skis glides past the window, casually plodding to an unknown destination.
It is other-worldly.
Going north, Mo I Rana is the stop before the crossing point and about fifteen minutes before Løndsdal station, a message is displayed informing passengers that they are “soon crossing the Arctic Circle and the Nordlandsbanens highest point at 680 metres above sea level.” There was no announcement, but the guard I’d been harrassing more or less since Trondheim came in to ask if I’d seen it. I had, but in my excitement had failed to spot the stone pyramids that indicate that you are now an explorer, perhaps because everything was covered in snow or simply because at this stage I was dangerously high on my own exhilaration.
In any case, I decided to celebrate in the dining car with a glass of pink cider which set me back about 10€, expense be blown! I nearly bought a bottle of sparkly wine (30€) but don’t regret having not as just one cider battered me slightly. Walking back to my seat, I wondered whether I should have brought my mittens with me to the restaurant car; as you move between carriages there’s a very noticeable drop in temperature as you’re briefly more exposed to the outside world.
Walking up and down the train I was surprised to see so much going on. In Premium, a lot of people were sleeping. In Standard, there was quite a lot of knitting and a little too much feet-on-seats for my liking, and then there was a family compartment where larger kids were making completely appropriate levels of noise in a brightly-coloured pen with bouncy things and squishy things while parents sat with smaller kids on their knees watching videos on tablets. It actually all looked rather fabulous and how wonderfully sensible to have such a place available.
I was almost spent by the time we pulled into Bodø on time, a miraculous achievement given the journey we’d just made. There were three hours to kill before the return trip, so I had a look in the café at the station, checked out the left luggage lockers (everywhere but France, apparently), then headed out to explore Bodø which was for the most part closed. I did, however, find a purveyor of tat (actually a mini-supermarket with the foresight to stock tat) and bought a couple of postcards (but no stamps) and a glorious fridge magnet from a wide selection of about one.
I quickly realised the pavements were more treacherous than I was prepared to navigate, so found my way to a vantage point on the harbour watching the sun set over the Norwegian Sea. That took me to about 8pm, at which point I had an elated walk back to the railway station, not bothered by my incredibly cold feet, to check in for the night train back to Trondheim.
Comfort-wise, between sleeper and seat SJ Nord has a class called Premium Plus, which has big comfy-looking airline-style seats arranged in a 1+2 configuration. These are not offered to Interrail pass-holders but if you’re paying full-whack are cheaper than a compartment. The coffee machine is also conveniently placed right next to the sleeping car so it’s possible to quietly pillage snacks and hot drinks if you’re not inclined to eat in the dining car. I was up for it but there was no non-meaty hot option available, so I polished off the remains of my packed lunch at the folding table outside my compartment and then turned in for the night with a (pillaged) mug of hot chocolate.
I stayed awake for a while hoping I might see some more aurorae, but couldn’t keep my faced pressed up against the window for too long as it was very cold indeed and in any case the mountains and clouds were conspiring against me. From time to time it was possible to see the yellowish glow of locomotive lights illuminating a path through the shiny white wilderness before us. Occasionally they’d light up the mouth of a tunnel seconds before we were swallowed up and plunged into darkness 154 times more.
This seemed a good indicator that it was at last time to lie back and give in to the gentle rocking and occasional tooting of NT 476.
