Rail freight companies in Norway are not having the time of their lives. Problems on the Norwegian network keep on coming, severely hindering rail operations. A representative of Onrail, a private rail company, is now saying that operators will “die” if there is no improvement.
Norwegian rail has been plagued by issues during the past year, writes Swedish publication Järnvägar. The problems include destroyed bridges and snow galleries, communication outages, a lack of snow removal, and more.
“It is no longer possible to run trains in Norway,” Henning Aandal, general manager of the freight train company Onrail, tells the Swedish publication. The latest major issue is the closure of the Dovre line between Oslo and Trondheim, where a bridge was damaged due to weather conditions.
Unviable detour
As a result, companies need to take a detour on the non-electrified Røros line, but that one has a much lower capacity. Onrail cannot compensate for the lack of capacity, and so all freight has switched to the road.
Onrail is suffering financially, even if state-owned CargoNet is doing even worse. Nevertheless, the private operator is worried about the situation. “If things don’t get much better, the freight train companies in Norway will die”, Aandal said. “So far we have managed, but the business is hanging by a thread if the infrastructure crisis in Norway continues.”
CargoNet numbers
As for CargoNet, its poor financial situation is not quite a new state of affairs. In 2023, its net sales fell from 117,9 million euros in 2022 to 111,9 million, while the result after financial items deteriorated from minus 5,7 million euros to minus 11,9 million.
CargoNet confirms that the ongoing three-month closure of the Dovre line will mean multi-million losses for the company. “We would like to run trains, but it has been easier said than done in recent years,” Carl Fredrik Karlsen, commercial director at Cargonet, said.