Flåm Railway: What to Know Before You Go

hello my name is emma and this is crow i am a tour leader for the nordic countries and today i'm going to be talking about the flam railway i'll explain everything you need to know before you make your trip [Music] so the flam railway is a train journey that connects the villages of phlom and miradar the total trip takes around 55 minutes and you travel a distance of about 20.2 kilometers which is roughly 12 miles it is one of the steepest railways in europe with a gradient of 1 in 18 or 5.5 percent the flam railway is often referred to as one of the most beautiful journeys in the world and it is currently one of the most visited attractions in norway in the early 20th century the bergen-tosler railway or the bergen line was being constructed around this time it was decided that the two largest fjords of norway the sovna fjord and the hadanga fjord should be connected to the bergen line via a rail link the train link to the hadonga fjord was completed first and then work began on the flam railway at the time flam was a tiny farming village that had the occasional cruise ship but it wasn't the popular attraction we know it as today work on the flam railway began in 1923 and as you can imagine it was a major challenge for the workers to start there were 120 men working on the construction though that quickly rose to 220. the numbers fluctuated between 80 and 280 people to house the employees barracks were built the local economy was stimulated by farmers being paid for that transport using horses they transported tourists by day and the building materials by night 18 of the 20 tunnels were carved out by hand on average it took between 116 and 180 man-hours per metre by the time norway was invaded by germany in april 1940 the railway wasn't complete it was the germans who expedited the completion of the railway it opened for steam trains on the 1st of august 1940 purely for cargo in november 1944 regular operation with electric locomotives was introduced so the tourism potential for the flam railway really began after the war highways were being constructed between the major cities and the flom railway was no longer needed to transport cargo from the fjord to the bergen line in 1951 they built the station at chesfossen which is a really famous waterfall we'll talk about soon by that point there were already 115 000 passengers traveling on the flam railway every year in recent years that number has climbed to 650 000 people and the flame railway has earned itself this reputation for being one of the must do's whenever you come to norway about farm itself it's a village with a population of 400 people the oldest farms in flam can be traced back to 3000 years and up until the 1980s most of the population were actually farmers as you take the farm railway you still see all the farms and you might even see the sheep and the goats today however most of the population work in the tourism industry as farm is also one of the busiest cruise ports in norway getting at least 150 cruise ships in the summer months which is between may and september if you want to learn more about the flame railway there's this excellent free museum in flam in the old railway station building and they go through the history of flam and the construction of the railway so the farm railway runs all year and it's completely different depending on the season for example if you take it in the early months of the year so winter it's just completely covered in snow when all the waterfalls are frozen if you travel in may in spring then you get really strong waterfalls because the snow's melting and it's also bright green everywhere as all the trees are coming to life in october you get the beautiful autumn colors so the orange and brown leaves on the trees on the mountainside so really it doesn't matter what time of year you travel um it will fit in with your travel plans throughout the year the only thing i'd take into consideration is the high season and as you can imagine if one of those cruise ships is in flam everyone wants to take the flamer away so it gets incredibly crowded if you do have the flexibility i would recommend taking the train either early in the morning or late in the evening most cruise passengers and tour groups tend to take the flam railway in the middle of the day if you want to check if there's going to be a cruise ship when you're on flam you can actually check on the ferry website which i've got in the description so norway in a nutshell is done in two different ways either you can do it as a day trip a round trip from bergen to bergen or you can take it as part of the bergen to oslo railway or vice versa so the day trip from bergen starts for the train to vos and then you take a public bus to goodwin at goodwin you bought a two-hour ferry cruise on the fjords to flom at flom you take the floam railway up to miradal and then take the train from miradal back to bergen so there's not really a right direction or a right way to do norway in a nutshell it is the same no matter which direction or which way you go the only difference i'd say is that the bergen to oslo or oslo to bergen norway in a nutshell is considerably longer of a day taking well over 12 hours and it can be quite tiring it's a lot of public transport i would really recommend if you have the opportunity to spend the night in flom break up that big trip with a night inflam it's definitely well worth it so the other way to do the flame railway is to do the thing yourself book all the tickets independently not with uh norway in a nutshell there is no difference you're not a second class citizen compared to those who booked through norway in a nutshell you take the exact same modes of public transport at the exact same time the only difference is is that you've booked all your tickets yourself whereas norway in a nutshell is booked as a package so really there is no difference between the two now i'll really recommend booking your tickets in advance especially in the summer season when it can get really crowded with all of these cruise ships and these groups coming through flam really recommend booking your tickets ahead of time you can typically book up to six months in advance on their website if the train is leaving from flam you can typically start boarding the train 10 to 15 minutes before it departs if you're taking the train from miradal however sometimes you only have minutes so your ticket will either be free seating or a sign setting if you have free seating really pay attention to the assigned seats each seat has a number on it and they don't put stickers on the seats to show you which one's assigned and which one's available what they do for groups so they put an a4 size sticker on the door as you're entering the train you'll see it so it'll say this group or this tour code has these assigned seats just make sure you don't sit in those assigned seats because over half the time i've taken a group on the floam railway i've had to tell individual travelers to move because these are our assigned seats it's really frustrating both for me and for the travelers who have to move but it is important because we have got these assigned seats so it's really important you pay attention to that because you might lose getting good seats if you have to move from your assigned seats so from experience all of the individual travelers sit towards the front of the train so the small numbered carriages whereas the group sit towards the back of the train so the larger numbered carriages so in each carriage on opposite sides there's a television screen that provides you with information photographs and alerts which side of the train to look at as there are also speakers so it's text and then speakers but sometimes it's really quiet and it's really hard to hear the speakers through the ages many people claim to see strange sights and creatures of legend if you look up and down the carriage there are cardboard boxes with maps you can take for free you can also get one from the information center on flam before you leave it's not always guaranteed that the box of maps will be close to your seat so a lot of people expect the flam railway to be really quiet really scenic and it's definitely really scenic but it's also definitely not very quiet in each carriage there are some windows that you can pull down if you want to take some clearer photos although to be honest half the time i find those windows to be jammed but anyway if you pull down the window you can take some nicer photos uh however you will hear the screeching of the train and it is not quiet it is incredibly loud and in some cases it can be quite unbearable so just keep that in mind if you do open the windows you will hear it if the windows are closed anyway but it's much louder if the windows are open you also really need to be quick with your photo taking so a good portion of the train journey takes place in tunnels after all there are 20 of them on this 55 minute trip the television screen will announce a point of interest what side it's on and then you basically have seconds between the tunnels to get your photo so there is no wi-fi on the train and you don't even get a mobile signal for most of the journey this is a good reason to put the phone down and just look out the window there is no food served on the train i would recommend getting something to eat from either flam or miradail if you do want to have lunch on board there are a couple toilets on the train however they are quite difficult to find i would recommend going to the public restrooms in phleam or miradar not only are they nicer and not on a moving train but it also means that you're not spending half the train journey pushing through the crowds up and down each carriage to find out where the toilet is so go in flam or miradar now some of the seats do face backwards if you have an assigned seat if the train is fully booked out there is not much you can do about it however if you're in the off season and you can move around a little bit typically the staff do not mind if you are stuck in a backward-facing seat and you don't want to be once the train has left you can actually stand up and walk around you'll see people standing up and walking around the entire time now also to get onto the train the stairs are very narrow and steep and there's a bit of a jump between the last stair and the ground lastly if you don't want to get off and flarm or miradar but somewhere else along the way this has to be requested beforehand and it's typically done when you book your ticket otherwise they do not stop at every platform along the way now one of the most commonly asked questions i get is which side is the best side to sit on and the right answer is there is no best side it's pretty on both sides however from experience if you're taking the train from flam to mirrordale i would recommend being on the right side for the first third of the journey then it's on the left side for the second third of the journey and then it goes back to the right side for the third and final part of the journey after leaving the station in flam you make your way through the valley and past the original flam village you will see farms with sheep and goats as well as the flom church which was built in the mid-17th century if you are spending the night in florence it's very easy to walk back here on your own the walk takes about 40 minutes and it's worth the journey so at berg farm station this is where they the track splits into two so the trains can overtake each other coming in the opposite direction this is a really good opportunity to get a photo of the train in the scenery uh your train might be the one who has to stop and wait for the other train to pass so if you are able to pull a window down this is when you want to stick your camera out the window and get a photo of your train with the beautiful nature in the background along the trip you see traces in the mountainside left by avalanches and rock falls that show the forces of nature the landscape shows boulders that have been pushed down by the glaciers as well as how rocks have broken away from the mountainside the landscape also shows the pastures with these beautiful green fields and these ruins of stone houses and walls so another really popular photo spot that you really need to be ready for it's on the right side if you're traveling from farm to miradar it's the old transport route that the workers used to use it consists of 21 hairpin tons and if you are planning on biking back down this is where you would go it's a really popular place to go bike riding this is also a spartan review that i really like to show because it really clearly shows how the flam valley is a u-shaped valley that was carved out by glaciers but that's just my nerdy interest in how fjords were formed so there is a portion of one of the tunnels along the way that has windows on the side so you can actually look out of the tunnel you can also see where the train makes a 180 degree turn in the mountainside it's really really impressive now one of the most popular parts of the farm railway is the 10 minute photo stop at shasfassin chest falsen is a waterfall foss actually means waterfall and the train stops allowing you to get off onto the platform and take some photos of this beautiful beautiful waterfall if you happen to be on the flame railway in the summer months there is a holdre performing ahuldra is like a folkloric bean in norwegian mythology and she performs on this old stone cabin this song and dance that's really really pretty you've probably seen one of these iconic images of the whole drew dancing against the waterfall now having done this trip many many times if you look very closely at the whole dress sometimes you'll notice it's not a young girl but it's actually a man with a beard performing in this red dress which makes it even funnier now it's often a mad rush to the waterfall so that's why it's good to be one of the first out by the train now they typically announce it over the speakers that soon they'll be coming to this stop of a waterfall they don't announce the whole dress so make sure you're keeping an eye out for her and you're in the prime position to take this photo they try to do it as a surprise so yeah just make sure you're aware of it uh so it's always good that as soon as you hear that we'll be stopping at a waterfall announcement that you head straight to the door leave all your stuff on the carriage it's very very safe and as soon as they stop you can open the door yourself hop out and then get yourself in the right position now once the whole dress stops singing and she disappears behind the cabin once again this is when it's time to go straight back to the train as you can imagine everyone was quite pushy to get off the train everyone's going to be very pushy to get back onto the train and a lot of people will leave it until the last second often when the conductor blows the whistle before they make their way back to the train be the smart one and just as soon as she stops performing that's roughly when they're going to start sending you back so just go back first it's not worth pushing amongst the crowd especially if you're traveling in the high season so that's it that's all the practical information i can think of when it comes to taking the flam railway i hope this answered some of the questions you might have about the journey and really just confirm the fact that it's definitely worth taking if you have any topic you'd like me to cover please leave it in the comments i'm quite happy to talk about almost anything i release new videos every tuesday with travel advice and experiences across norway so make sure you like and subscribe this youtube channel you can also read a version of this article as well as other articles about norway at ilovebergen.net so until next tuesday thank you for watching

Channel: The Hidden North

Views: 27,428

Keywords: flåm railway, flåm, flåmsbana, flåmsbana information, what to see in flåm, what to do in flåm, cruise ship flåm, myrdal, norway in a nutshell, what is norway in a nutshell, bergen, oslo, bergen oslo train, what to do in norway, what to do in bergen, what to see in norway, what to see in bergen

Id: Ie1G_unenQw

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020