The Vestfold Line () is a railway line which runs between Drammen and Eidanger Station in Porsgrunn in Norway. The line connects to the Drammen Line at the northern terminus at Drammen Station and continues as the Bratsberg Line past Skien Station. The line is exclusively used for passenger trains, which are provided by Vy, which connect northwards to Oslo and south-westwards to Grenland. The section from Eidanger to Skien is often colloquially included in the Vestfold Line. The standard gauge line is electrified at and has twelve remaining stations. The Vestfold Line runs through the coastal region of Vestfold and serves major towns including Holmestrand, Tønsberg, Sandefjord and Larvik, as well as Sandefjord Airport, Torp.
The section to Larvik Station was opened on 13 October 1881 and the remainder, including an extension to Skien Station, opened on 23 November 1882. The line was originally variously known as the Drammen–Skien Line (), the County Line () and the Jarlsberg Line (), until it became known as the Vestfold Line. Horten was served via the now closed Horten Line from Skoppum Station. Three other branches were later built: the Brevik Line (1895), the Tønsberg–Eidsfoss Line (1901) and the Holmestrand–Vittingfoss Line (1902). The latter two were private and closed in 1938. The Vestfold Line received gauge conversion from the original narrow gauge in 1949, as the last mainline railway in Norway. It was electrified in 1957.
Since the 1980s there have been plans to upgrade the line to high speed. The first section, at Skoger, opened in 1995. It was followed by a section past Sande Station in 2001, a passing loop at Nykirke in 2002 and a section including the Jarlsberg Tunnel in Tønsberg in 2011. In 2016 a new railway through Holmestrand, of which most is in the Holmestrandsporten tunnel, opened. In September 2018 a new double track line between Larvik and Porsgrunn opened, which shortened the travel-time from 33 to 12 minutes.
Route The Vestfold Line runs from Drammen Station to Eidanger Station, through three counties (Buskerud, Vestfold, and Telemark) and six municipalities (Drammen, Holmestrand, Horten, Tønsberg, Larvik, and Porsgrunn. The line is , of which is double track. The entire line is electrified, has partial automatic train control and GSM-R. It has 111 level crossings, of which 29 have light and bar. The railway line is owned and maintained by the Norwegian National Rail Administration.
Drammen−Larvik The route roughly follows the coastline of Oslofjorden whilst, concerning the first section, running from Drammen to Sande inland, bypassing thereby Oslofjords western finger Drammensfjorden. Holmestrandsporten tunnel between Holm i Sande and Nykirke (Horten Municipality) was opened in 2016 as part of a double-track high-speed upgrading. South of Nykirke, the route, again, crosses over into Tønsberg Municipality in a hinterland passage. Due to practical reasons (avoidance of a terminus), Tønsberg once got a big loop downtown without horseshoe curve function. The next segment to Larvik via Sandefjord runs inland, but never too far away from Skagerrak coastline. Before Larvik station, Numedalslågen is bridged.
Larvik−Porsgrunn−Skien In 2018, the original single-track route between Farriselva (Larvik) at lake Farris and Porsgrunn (via Oklungen) was abandoned in favour of a newbuilt double-track high-speed bypass, using several tunnels and not-so-small bridges. Alongside Skienselva, Vestfold Line gets northward to Skien.
Service
Revenue traffic on the line is nearly exclusively provided by Vy as a regional service, numbered RE11. These continue southwards along the Bratsberg Line to Grenland towns of Porsgrunn and Skien and northwards along the Drammen and Asker Line to Oslo and onwards via the Gardermoen Line to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen and the Dovre Line to Lillehammer. Trains operate with a fixed hourly service, with additional trains during rush-hour.
Vy uses Class 70 and 74 electric multiple units on the line. NSB freighted 1.7 million passengers on the line in 2012, making it the busiest regional rail service provided by NSB. Vy provides an included shuttle service from Sandefjord Airport Station to Sandefjord Airport, Torp, which takes four minutes. The Vestfold Line is occasionally used by rerouted freight trains along the Sørlandet Line when that line is closed between Drammen and Nordagutu.
History
Planning Public opinion started debating the need for a railway through Vestfold in the late 1860s, when the Randsfjorden Line was built to Drammen, opening in 1868.Jakobsen (1996): 12 The parliamentarians from Jarlsberg and Larvik County (renamed Vestfold in 1919) appealed to the government in 1869 for the construction of a railway through Vestfold south from Drammen to Larvik and onwards to Langefjorden. The request was positively accepted by the government, who instructed the railway director to carry out surveys through Vestfold, prioritizing it higher than the surveys through Østfold.Broch (1936): 96
The country experienced an economic boom starting in 1871, with demands throughout the country for railways to be built. Official planning of a railway through Vestfold to Brevik commenced with a royal resolution on 24 July 1871. In addition to providing a regional rail service to Vestfold, a steamship service could be set up from Larvik to Frederikshavn, Denmark. There was also at the time problems with the inner parts of the Oslofjord and the Drammensfjord icing during winter, and access to the ports on the outer fjord would ease the export situation for industry.Broch (1936): 97
There were a multitude of proposals for where the railway should run. The only points of agreement were that the line should run through Tønsberg, Sandefjord and Larvik, and the line between the three towns was the least controversial. North of Tønsberg there was more disunity. One proposal was to run the railway from Vestfossen Station on the Kongsberg Line along the east shore of Eikeren and down to Tønsberg along a route similar to that which the Tønsberg–Eidsfoss Line would later follow. A branch line would then be built to Horten.Jakobsen (1996): 13 This alternative allowed the line to run through an area with good access to lumber, which the railway would aid export. The main disadvantage was that the route was longer than via Sande.Broch (1936): 98
Alternatively a passage through Sande was proposed, although fourteen different routes were proposed. Three main ones were the inner, outer and combined coastal alternatives. The outer followed the shore of the Oslofjord, would be and would run through Holmestrand, Horten and Åsgårdstrand before reaching Tønsberg. The combined and inner would be , respectively, and both involved building a branch line to Horten. A major argument against the coastal route was that the towns already had a good steamship service, with services several daily departures.Broch (1936): 99 A third major alternative was to bypass the coast altogether and build a connection from the Kongsberg Line at Skollenborg Station down the valley of Lågendalen to Larvik. The main advantage of this alternative was the large potential for hydroelectricity along Numedalslågen.
Jarlsberg and Larvik County Council and the town councils appointed a railway committee, which asked the county governor on 27 November 1873 to issue shares in the new railway. The county bought shares worth 400,000 Norwegian krone (NOK). Shares for a coastal railway were bought for NOK 4.9 million, twice that of the interior route. The coastal route was expected to pay a dividend of three to four percent, compared to two and a half percent for the interior.Broch (1936): 101 Ahead of the county council meeting in December 1873 the county governor recommended that an application be sent to the government without a preferred route, but the majority of the county council's members voted in favor the interior alternative.Broch (1936): 100
At the time the railway was variously referred to as the County Line and the Jarlsberg Line, both named for the historic countship of Jarlsberg.Broch (1936): 102 By 1874 the state railway commission had considered the line and had concluded that it should be built with narrow gauge. Only its chair, Professor Broch, voted in favor of standard gauge, and at the same time recommended that the Drammen Line be converted to the wider gauge. The advantage of narrow gauge was that it would cut construction costs by a third.Jakobsen (1996): 94 By then the railway director, Carl Abraham Pihl, had concluded in disfavor of the Vestfold Line and had instead wanted to prioritize the Østfold Line. His view was shared by the cabinet. The break-through came when plans to extend the line onwards to Skien were launched. Pihl estimated the extension to cost NOK 4.5 million, in addition to a possible branch to Brevik.Broch (1936): 103
The construction of the line was considered by Parliament in 1875. A political deal was struck, where representatives from the Vestfold area agreed to support the Voss Line while representatives from Hordaland supported the Jarlsberg Line.Broch (1936): 104 The decision, taken on 8 June 1875,Jakobsen (1996): 16 was made with 76 against 36 votes, and supported the compromise coastal route with an extension to Skien. The line was budgeted to cost NOK 10.7 million, and shares of NOK 3.25 million had been sold.Broch (1936): 105
Construction Construction commenced in 1876, under the management of Pihl, Cato Maximilian Guldberg and Jørgen Meinich. The line received a minimum curve radius of and a maximum gradient of 1:55 (1.8%). The work was attempted halted twice in 1877 by parties issuing complaints. The first stated that the right-of-way should be built in preparation for conversion to standard gauge, the latter was an attempt to stall construction and instead place the route through the interior. Engineer Størmer launched a proposal in 1878 to instead build the line with standard gauge. This was considered by Parliament's Standing Committee on Railways, but voted down with five against four votes. The proposal was voted down in the plenary voting, with only 24 supporting standard gauge.Broch (1936): 106
There were few difficulties building the line in the relatively flat landscape between Drammen and Larvik. The largest challenge was building through Kobbervikdalen. The navvies were uncomfortable building a cutting south of Holmestrand, where the line went through an old cemetery in clay ground and they would often find well-preserved corpses while digging. The section between Larvik and Skien went through considerably more hilly terrain, especially along the shore of Farrisvannet, which included more than twenty tunnels along a section of . At the peak, in 1879, there were 2,114 people working on the railway construction, receiving an average NOK 2.50 per day in wage.Broch (1936): 108
Because King Oscar II happened to be touring Norway in October 1881, the railway between Drammen and Larvik was officially opened by him on 13 October 1881, including the branch to Horten. However, the construction was not completed and the line did not actually start operations until 7 December. The section from Larvik to Skien was officially opened on 24 November 1882. Construction cost NOK 12 million. The Brevik Line was taken out of the original plans and did not open until 15 October 1895.
Narrow-gauge years