Powellite

Powellite
"Powellite" Bagnall 3ft gauge locomotive at Black Sands, Victoria - 1938. Photograph: P.G. Dow

04 August, 2010

Monday 2 August continued

Hønefoss has a platform shaped like two sides of a triangle, being a junction station, with a fair amount of activity for brief periods, and that was certainly the case when I was there, with my train which had come from near Drammen, the Oslo-Bergen train, then the Bergen-Oslo train (which I was to catch), and the train returning towards Drammen. On top of that there were a couple of odd movements with empty passenger trains, one heading towards Oslo, and the other just pottering about the yard, in the way you would expect with a playful steam loco, but not with a multiple-unit electric train (which are without souls after all).

The Oslo train which I caught was one of the modern high-speed multiple unit designs, consisting of two four-car sets coupled together, with a cafeteria car in each unit. The external design of these owes something to the original Japanese bullet trains, but they don't impress me. Nor do they achieve high speed on this line. Following past experience for lunch this time I dare not go for anything looking healthy, and instead chose the house speciality - hot dogs - which was acceptable and edible.

Arrival at Oslo was pretty close to time. Here there were interesting developments, I had a reserved seat on the 15:37 train to Hamar, but was advised by an NSB customer service officer to rush to track 19, where I had three minutes to catch a Hamar train. The reason for this strange instruction was "that there had been a delay" which I presume meant the 15:37 was

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