Bjorli Station () is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the

Rauma Line The Rauma Line () is a long railway between the town of Åndalsnes (in Rauma Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county), and the village of Dombås (in Dovre Municipality in Innlandet county), in Norway. Running down the Romsdalen valley, the line ...

located at Bjorli in

Lesja Lesja is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lesja. Other villages in the municipality include Bjorli, Lesjas ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The station opened on 19 November 1921 and was the line's terminus until 1923. In addition to a

station building A station building, also known as a head house, is the main building of a passenger railway station. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers. A station building is a component of a station, which can include tracks, ...

, Bjorli had a

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

, roundhouse,

turntable A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding phys ...

and a restaurant seating 700 people, the latter which was bombed to pieces in 1940. The station is served by

SJ Norge SJ is the primary passenger train operator in Sweden. A wholly state-owned company operated for-profit under market conditions, SJ operates various services across Sweden. SJ's operations include high-speed trains, intercity trains, night trains ...

trains four times per day per direction. In the summer, the station is the terminus of a tourist services from

Åndalsnes is a town in Rauma Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. Åndalsnes is also the administrative center of Rauma Municipality. It is located along the Isfjorden, at the mouth of the river Rauma, at the north end of the Romsdalen valle ...

History

Construction of the station started in 1918 and was finished in 1921. The station, excluding its water tower and restaurant, cost 117,062

Norwegian krone The krone (, currency sign, abbreviation: kr (also NKr for distinction); ISO 4217, code: NOK), plural ''kroner'', is the currency of the Kingdom of Norway (including List of possessions of Norway, overseas territories and dependencies). It was t ...

(NOK) to build and took 26,883 man-hours.Raumabanen (1994): 133 The station and axillary buildings were designed by Gudmund Hoel of NSB Arkitektkontor. The station opened with the first part of the Rauma Line on 19 November 1921. It remained the terminus until 25 November 1923, when the next section, to Verma Station, opened. The station is located in a wide, flat terrain, so getting sufficient pressure to supply water for the steam locomotives would be very expensive. Instead, a water tower was built at the station, with water pumped from the river Rauma. The pump is located from the tower, with the water intake being another from the pump.Raumabanen (1994): 136 The water tower was built in natural stone brick and is square. After the

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

services ended, was used as a storage facility. The tower cost NOK 103,795 to build. The station also received a turntable, which cost NOK 101,236,Raumabanen (1994): 137 which had a diameter. Although it was planned completed on 1 August 1921, construction was delayed and it was taken into use one month after the station opened. Bjorli had a temporary roundhouse while the station was the terminus. Built out of wood, the building cost NOK 30,373. On 1 July 1927, a separate restaurant building with place for 700 diners opened. Open only during summer until September, it was aimed at cruise ship tourists who took the line from Åndalsnes to Bjorli. Operated by Norsk Spisevognselskap, it was highly profitable. However, during the

German occupation of Norway The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until th ...

in 1940, the building was bombed and burnt down, and was never rebuilt.

Facilities

The station building is owned by Bane NOR Eiendom, while the tracks and infrastructure are owned and operated by

Bane NOR Bane NOR SF is the Norwegian government agency responsible for owning, maintaining, operating and developing the Norwegian railway network, including the track, stations, and the majority of other infrastructure assets. It took over the operati ...

. The station building is unstaffed, but the waiting room is open from 07:00 to 22:00. The line lacks centralized traffic control, so the station must be staffed for trains to pass. The station has three tracks: two which are used for trains to pass and one which is designed for loading, and has an effective length of . The station has ten parking spaces but lacks ticket vending machines. The station is

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

and located from both Dombås and Åndalsnes, and from

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

. It is located in the village of Bjorli in Lesja, that serves as an Alpine skiing center.

Service

SJ Norge operates passenger train services on the line. Using Class 93 trains, they operate four services in each direction per day. During the summer, from June through August, SJ operates the trains as tourist trains, limiting the service from Åndalsnes to Bjorli.

References

;Bibliography * * ;Notes {{end Railway stations in Innlandet Railway stations on the Rauma Line Lesja Railway stations in Norway opened in 1921