Flåm is at the end of the longest fjord in Norway. If the weather had been better it would have been a beautiful sail into and out of the fjord. But, it was foggy and misty so the scenery was muted.To get off the ship we took a “tender.” It is actually a life boat which they use to get us from the ship to shore when there is no docking facility. The life boats have a capacity of 150. I asked a crew member if they practiced completely loading them. He said they did and said the law requires them to load the boat in 30 minutes. The last time they trained, it took them 28 minutes. They used crew members as passengers. I just wonder what it would be like in a true emergency with panicked passengers, some large fraction of them with mobility problems. We don’t really want to find out.
We took the Flåm railway which was a fun trip. The railway was built to connect the Flåm valley to the rail lines between Oslo and Bergen. It was an incredible engineering feat because of the topography. Much of the line has a gradient of 55%. (or the equivalent of 1:18). <I need a civil engineer to tell me why 1:18 is 55%.> Construction was started in 1923 and travel started via steam engine in 1940. The trains were switched to electric engines in 1944.
It takes about an hour to complete the 20 kilometer (12.4 miles) trip. There are 20 tunnels totaling 6 km in length. 18 of the tunnels were excavated by hand at a pace of 1 meter for every 150 hours of labor. Avalanche danger is high and the rail line was built to avoid the worst places by crossing the valley in places. The scenery is beautiful as the pictures below will demonstrate.
Halfway we stopped for a view of large waterfall. In the right side of the picture on the left you can just see a red figure. They were playing eerie music and they had two dancers dressed in red beckoning us to the ruined building.
We stopped at a hotel just one km from the end of the line where we had a delicious waffle with whipped cream and jam. The hotel is open year round. It must be quite snowy in the winter given the snow on the mountains just above it.
In the picture above you can see a winding road next to the waterfall. People were biking on that road and I (Chuck) was quite envious. That would be a super fun road to ride, especially down hill. On the right is original village of Flåm. You can see the church near the bridge. It is a beautiful village.
The most common feature on the train ride and in the fjords is waterfalls. We starting calling them AFWs (Another Fine Waterfall). I must have pictures of 25+ different waterfalls.
Here are a few of the performers from the show that night.
Tim Russel and Sue Scott. Sigurd and Torbjorn. The Opera Quartet.