SS ''Orkla'' was a

steam ship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The fir ...

that operated the historic line between

Thamshavn Thamshamn or Thamshavn is a small port village in Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is the site of the port for the town of Orkanger and the ferrosilicon plant Elkem Thamshavn. It is located right along European route E39 an ...

Orkanger Orkanger is a town and the administrative centre of Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The town sits at the end of the Orkdal Fjord, an arm of the Trondheimsfjord. Orkanger is the commercial centre of Orkland Municipality and it ...

and

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

in the

Trondheim Fjord The Trondheim Fjord or Trondheimsfjorden (), an inlet of the Norwegian Sea, is Norway's third-longest fjord at long. It is located in the west-central part of the country in Trøndelag county, and it stretches from Ørland Municipality in th ...

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 ...

between 1908 and 1949. It was built at Trondheims Mekaniske Verksted in Trondheim and went into operation at the same time as the railway line

Thamshavn Line The Thamshavn Line () was Norway's first electric railway, running from 1908 to 1974 in what is now Trøndelag county. Today it is operated as a heritage railway and is the world's oldest railway running on its original alternating current elec ...

opened between Thamshavn and

Løkken Verk Løkken Verk (or simply ''Løkken'') is a village in Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located south of the village of Svorkmo, east of the village of Bjørnli, and north of the municipal center of Meldal (village), Meld ...

. It operated two round trips each day and was owned by Chr. Salvesen & Chr. Thams's Communications Aktieselskab, who also owned the railway. When it was delivered it was the fastest (making 13 knots on the test run) and one of the grandest local boats in the country and was nicknamed "the Trondheim Fjord's white swan". During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

the ship reduced its operations to one daily round trip due to lack of coal, and was run partly on sawdust. In the 1920s the ship got competition from bus routes on the stretch Trondheim -

, soon to be operated by the sister company Trondhjem-Orkladal Billag, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s the line lost a lot of traffic. During World War II Orkla had more passengers again, but after the war the number of passengers decreased sharply and in 1949 there were no longer enough passengers or goods to sustain the route. A freight route was kept up until 1959 with the smaller motor boat MS ''Elna''. ''Orkla'' was sold to a Belgian company, and was supposed to be used on the river Congo. However, there seems to be no record of her going there. She was sailed across the Atlantic, and in 1962 she was seen by a Norwegian ship's engineer in Talara, Peru.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orkla Ships built in Trondheim Passenger ships of Norway Orkla ASA 1908 ships Steamships of Norway World War II merchant ships of Norway