The History of Gaustabanen
A Groundbreaking Idea
After the war, interest in alpine skiing continued to grow in Norway, and locally in the municipality of Tinn, tourists were welcome guests at Gaustatoppen, both summer and winter.
“The idea of a railway inside the mountain emerged as early as 1951, while the final plans for Gaustabanen took shape two years later,” says Songe.
On Saturday 13 June 1953, the news broke in the local press. “Plan for a tunnel railway to Gaustatoppen,” wrote Rjukan Dagblad.
Curious newspaper readers learned that the planned facility would play a role in television broadcasting, air traffic and weather forecasting, but above all in tourism. The Norwegian Armed Forces were also interested in access to the summit, and according to the plans, the costs were to be shared equally between tourism and defence.
In the autumn of 1953, the airline Widerøe carried out an extensive aerial survey of the summit, and at the end of September 1953, the first light bulb was switched on at the top.
The project quickly gained momentum. Norsk Hydro was appointed contractor on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, and as early as February 1954, work on the tunnel began. Just over six months had passed since the newspapers first reported on the plans.
“It did not take long from the idea of a facility for everyone to NATO taking over the entire project. In reality, NATO had taken control of Gaustabanen when construction began,” says Songe.
During the planning process, NATO continuously introduced new security requirements, and little by little the vision of a tourist facility weakened. At the same time as construction began, NATO had secured full funding for Gaustabanen, and from then on the alliance managed the project independently.
“I believe it must have been a disappointment for the tourism industry and the local community, but the railway might not have been realised if the defence sector had not covered the costs,” the author says.
Spectacular Engineering
The entrance to Gaustabanen at Langefonn is located 1,125 metres above sea level, and the exit at Tuddalstippen is 675 metres higher.
“It is impressive, and there are not many facilities of this kind. The fact that it feels a bit rugged only makes it more exciting,” says Songe.
The first stage takes you by tram along a horizontal track, 850 metres straight into the mountain. From there, a steep section carries you upward through a 1,040 metre long tunnel with an incline of 39 degrees.
“Gaustabanen could have featured in any James Bond film. It is both spectacular and innovative to conceive and build a railway of this kind,” says Songe.
Not least, innovative solutions were required to remove the large quantities of rock and stone from inside the mountain.
If you park at Langefonn today, you are in fact standing on the masses that were excavated from the tunnel. The rock from Langefonn was transported out using two small locomotives, and the tracks were gradually extended as the tunnel grew longer and the embankment expanded.
When the Tunnel Collapsed
Building a tunnel inside Gaustatoppen was anything but risk free. In a construction project of this scale, it was not surprising that unforeseen challenges arose along the way. What lay hidden inside the mountain, however, nearly caused the entire project to be put on hold, quite literally.
Gaustatoppen contains permafrost, and as the workers advanced upward through the mountain, they encountered ice that had been frozen for thousands of years. When they finally achieved breakthrough in early summer 1957, something happened that no one had anticipated.
The tunnel turned out to function like a massive chimney for warm air, and the rising heat caused the ice to melt. The collapse that followed was unavoidable.
Work had been in full progress for three years, and the possibility of abandoning the prestigious project was seriously considered. Remarkably, after further planning, the painstaking work continued. The solution was to reverse their entire approach.
Large rock blocks could still come loose, so the engineers decided that reinforcement had to be carried out from the top downward through the tunnel, rather than from the bottom up.
“It was an extraordinary project. The fact that it was carried through at all shows how important Gaustatoppen was as a central communications hub. NATO must have considered it extremely important,” says Songe.
The retaining walls were cast in sections and then lifted into place from above with assistance from helicopters from the US Army. Once the most dangerous sections had been secured, work could continue in the lower part of the tunnel.
In retrospect, history shows that building a tunnel to the top of a mountain requires both determination and the courage to think big.
“The only thing missing is being able to drive the antenna up and down the mountain,” Songe laughs.
Considering the scale of the facility, Gaustabanen was completed in a relatively short time.
“Health and safety regulations were probably somewhat different back then, but no one lost their life during construction,” the author says.
Why Gaustatoppen?
When Gaustabanen opened in 1959, tourism was no longer part of the conversation surrounding the railway inside Gaustatoppen. Gaustabanen had become a purely military installation.
From then on, the iconic mountain peak in Telemark was to play an important role in the country’s overall communications network. Norway’s topography meant that communication within military facilities required special attention.
Even before the facility was completed, the Armed Forces Joint Communications Service had installed temporary radio link systems at Gaustatoppen Turisthytte.
In particular, coordination of the Air Force required a large number of long distance communication links. According to Songe, the requirements became even stricter after Norway joined NATO.
Because of its location far to the north and its shared border with the Soviet Union, Norway’s primary role in NATO’s defence alliance was to serve as an early warning and intelligence base. This required secure communications, the author explains.
“At the time, NATO was something new and the alliance was important in the defence of the country after the war. For the local community, the facility also provided much needed jobs. We do not know how many people worked there, but many from Rjukan were employed in connection with Gaustatoppen,” he says.
Around 1960, the radio link system in Norway was the largest integrated microwave system in Europe, and the station at Gaustatoppen was to serve as a key hub in Norway’s military radio link network for 50 years.
Tension in the Air
Today, there is little doubt that the facility inside Gaustatoppen played an important role during the Cold War.
“The Armed Forces have kept a lid on what took place there. I am still trying to find out what was being discussed and what information was revealed at the summit. There is a great deal of intrigue connected to it,” says Songe.
The Soviets were also curious about what was happening inside Gaustatoppen. According to Songe, so called berry pickers were frequently observed in the area around the mountain, arriving in cars with Soviet embassy licence plates and long antennas.
The few civilians who travelled with Gaustabanen in the 1960s, 70s and 80s had to be pre approved. Songe himself first took Gaustabanen to the summit in 1980, when he was Head of Culture in the municipality of Tinn.
“Those who applied to travel on the railway had to be cleared all the way up through NATO. You had to allow between one and two weeks of planning time to reach the summit by Gaustabanen,” he says.
According to Songe, people who had been politically active on the left were regarded as suspicious individuals, and those with a Marxist Leninist background were not permitted to travel on the railway.
“I know several people who were not allowed to go,” he says.
Prominent Guests
Locally, there was an understanding that what took place at Gaustatoppen was not something you were involved in, Songe explains. For the local community, the mountain therefore held its greatest significance as a symbol and an attraction. It was featured on the official letterhead of Tinn municipality and has always had a strong appeal for hikers.
“No one in the local community knew what was up there or who was up there. In 1961, the Minister of Defence, Gudmund Harlem, even held a Nordic defence ministers’ meeting at the summit without anyone knowing,” says Songe.
A number of prominent figures visited Gaustabanen in secret, ranging from senior NATO officials to foreign ministers. Even when King Olav inspected the facility in 1977, it took place quietly, with a helicopter from Oslo.
“It is remarkable what kind of people have been at Gaustatoppen without the local community having any idea,” says Songe.
Gaustatoppen remains important for communication in Norway, and the mountain’s location means that there would most likely have been broadcasting and a weather station at the summit regardless of whether the railway had been built.
“But there would not have been a NATO facility without the railway. It transported all personnel and equipment to the summit, and above all made access possible in all weather conditions. With the railway inside the mountain, the NATO facility could be staffed at all times,” says Songe.
It was not until 31 July 2010 that the very first commercial departure of Gaustabanen took place. Nearly 60 years after the plans for a unique tourist facility inside Gaustatoppen were first presented, visitors could finally take Gaustabanen to the summit.