On the (t)rail of history: Heritage train on one of Norway's most spectacular Railways

My wife took me by surprise when she suggested we should join a heritage train ride this weekend on the Rauma Railway, which is one of Norway's most scenic and spectacular ones. Of course I couldn't resist. I'm not only into model railways, but like to study the prototype as well. Besides this travel is in an area with a lot of WW2 history. She is a keep!

The train ride started in Hamar, which is the town where the Norwegian Railway Museum is located. This heritage train ride was arranged by the Railway Museum, and the motive power of the day to pull the old coaches was a 1958 Nohab Di.3 diesel. A really Classic:

Maps like this was signposted in all of our old coaches, and also presented some few facts about Norway in different languages. It seems like our population was 'less than half' back then:

I've marked our trip on the map; It began in Hamar in the south and went up through Gudbrandsvalley to the mountain at Dombås, before going down the Rauma valley to Åndalsnes, then returning the same way. A trip taking some 11 hours through different and spectacular scenery and changing weather conditions:

Shortly after departing Hamar:

A short stop at Vinstra on the way up to the mountain pass at Dombås:

Dombås is a mountain pass between Southern and Northern and Eastern and Western parts of Norway and an important road and railway junction. Dombås was strategically important during the battle of Norway in april 1940. It was held with combined Norwegian and British forces, but the Germans tried to capture Dombås by using Paratroopers for the first time during WW2. The German Paratroopers landed to scattered and lost the airplanes with their heavier weapons. Even if it came to heavy fighting, the German mission failed and the Paratroopers were eventually captured. Due to this the Germans heavily bombed Dombås and Rauma valley. Since the Norwegians managed to secure Dombås, The Norwegian King and Crownprince could also be evacuated by train passing Dombås.

This train had a bistro-coach:

Our lunch: 

After passing the highest point at Dombås, we continued at the Rauma branch line on our way down to Åndalsnes. Now the weather drastically changed into winter:

Further down the Rauma valley there were less snow again:

There were a lot of battle actions through the Rauma valley in april 1940 as well. The Norwegian gold reserves was evacuated from the Germans from Oslo 1940, and transported by train to Åndalsnes to finally evacuate it by ships. The Germans kept bombing Åndalsnes very heavily and the 'gold train' was withdraw to Romsdalshorn station to get some protection against the aerial attacks by the steep mountain there; Trollveggen. At the station 49 tons of gold was eventually reloaded onto trucks and transported to Molde by road and eventually evacuated by British ships. I've seen the reloading scene modeled a couple of times in H0 on Norwegian layouts:

A couple of photos I took from the 'Gold Train' display at Romsdalshorn station during a motorcycle trip in the summer of '23:

Both these actions could serve as inspiration to create wargaming scenarios. Coincidentally Mark at the Man of Tin blog also made a post about using the evacuation of the King and gold as inspiration for scenarios using his newly painted combined Norwegian 1940 Infantry/ Star Wars Hoth Rebels this weekend. A very interesting project I recommend you to visit and read:

That's the brief history lessons for now. Time to continue down the valley to Åndalsnes:

This is at Åndalsnes Railway station at sea level. The 'Golden Train' in the background is a tourist train taking mainly cruises passengers to Bjorli and back in spectacular scenery and telling the important war history from this area:

Back at Hamar later in the evening:

It's always difficult to film a train in which you ride yourself. -But I've found a YouTube-Channel where the user sthalvardsgt had uploaded 3 videos of this train while running:

Perhaps about time to take a look at the movie Gold Run again.