Bane NOR, Oslo tunnel | The Oslo tunnel was already overloaded in 2007: – It is critical

The fire​​​​ in the cables at the Nationaltheatret railway station on the night of 10 November stopped train traffic through the Oslo Tunnel. While the damage was being repaired, the trains had to be turned around at Skøyen and Oslo S. There was a queue on the E18 through Asker and Bærum. It shows the importance of a functional railway.

Nationaltheatret station is located on the Oslo tunnel. It is the most important link between the eastern and western railway network of Norway. The tunnel opened in 1980 and has two tracks, one on each side. Since then, traffic has increased significantly.

The Oslo Tunnel was already declared congested in 2007. In 2023, Bane NOR announced that the entire section Lysaker-Oslo S-Trondheim-Bodø was congested. So there is no room to introduce new journeys, not freight or passenger trains.

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This will be too weak

We feel the importance of the Oslo Tunnel especially when there are operational disruptions, such as now. The heavy traffic axis Drammen-Gardermoen will be broken.

To emphasize the national importance, the design and construction of new routes between Oslo S and Lysaker was named the “National Tunnel”. This section is no longer than seven kilometers, but it runs through dense areas with hard terrain.

Planning for the Rikstunnel has been going on before, but unfortunately it was reduced and stopped in 2021. In the national budget for 2025, the government has proposed to allocate money to start ” careful” on a new design.

For Jernbane, this will be too weak, and he believes that the politicians must take a stronger hold on this process.

The national tunnel will be an investment. The Government’s proposal for the state budget includes a cut in planning and investments of about 3.7 billion, a reduction of 21 percent compared to this year. The government is doing this to prioritize the maintenance of the existing road.

No one disagrees that repairs need to be increased, but it would be wrong to go beyond planning and building tomorrow’s railway.

The same does not happen for national highways. There, the government maintains and builds in equal measure.

It doesn’t help when the tunnel is closed

In the preparatory work for the National Transport Plan 2025-2036, Bane NOR and the Norwegian Railway Directorate wrote: “Within this framework, there may not be enough money to ensure progress in planning a will give the best performance to the project.

The framework they refer to continues the current level of funding. The project is the National Tunnel. Unfortunately, “this framework” is what the government has decided on. The other best was Frame 3 – “Investing in the future of rail” with a ten percent higher rating.

In 2023, the Railway Directorate proposed investing in double-decker trains in regional traffic in eastern Norway. The most important reason was certainly the overloading of the Oslo Tunnel.

Double decking will accommodate more passengers per train, but it will not help when the tunnel is closed due to fire​​​​​​or track, power and signal faults, if a train has a stop fault and if it blocks the tunnel or when you are leaving again. it is needed.

It is also a big challenge to access and carry out the necessary maintenance in a tunnel with so much traffic. At these times, the National Tunnel also has a volume of preparation.

The Rikstunnel is therefore the single most important investment for a larger and more reliable rail service in Norwegian Railways. Planning should therefore be given full priority from 2025, with new money.