Snarum Station (originally Lofthus 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 Krøder Line in

Buskerud Buskerud () is a Counties of Norway, county and a current electoral district in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Innlandet, Vestland, Telemark and Vestfold. The region extends from the Oslofjord and Drammensfjorden in the southeast to Hardanger ...

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 ...

. It was opened on 28 November 1872 and located in the village Snarum. The

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, ...

was designed by

Georg Andreas Bull Georg Andreas Bull (26 March 1829 – 1 February 1917) was a Norwegian architect and chief building inspector in Oslo, Christiania (now Oslo) for forty years. He was among the major architects in the country, and performed surveying studies and ...

Swiss chalet style Swiss chalet style (, ) is an architectural style of Historicism (art), Late Historicism, originally inspired by rural chalets in Switzerland and the Alps, Alpine (mountainous) regions of Central Europe. The style refers to traditional building d ...

. On 26 November 1872, farmer Jørgen Rytterager was appointed the first

station master The station master (or stationmaster) is the person in charge of a Train station, railway station, particularly in the United Kingdom and many other countries outside North America. In the United Kingdom, where the term originated, it is now lar ...

of the station. The station was one of the stations on the Krøder Line with the most passenger and freight traffic. Passenger service was ceased on 19 January 1958, and freight traffic on 1 March 1985.

History

The Krøder Line was opened on 28 November 1872 as a branch line from the

Randsfjord Line The Randsfjorden Line () is an railway located in Buskerud in Norway connecting Drammen to Hønefoss and Jevnaker in Akershus county. The railway is primarily used for passenger trains, and the only scheduled trains on the stretch are Vy Tog exp ...

. It was originally constructed as a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

line, but converted into

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

in 1909. On 14 March 1872, farmer Jørgen Rytterager (1809–1899) sent a letter to the operation manager of the Randsfjord Line, in which he applied for the station master position at the future Snarum Station. On 28 September the same year, the operation manager replied Rytterager in a letter, in which he granted him the position. A meeting was held on 26 November, where Rytterager officially was appointed station master of Snarum Station. A

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and a telegraph apprentice were also employed at the station on the same date. The station was opened two days later under the name Lofthus, but had its name changed to Snarum at some point in 1873. Rytterager retired from his positions at the station on 1 December 1882, at the age of 73 years, and later died on 17 March 1899. He was succeeded by Olaus Strøm, who served as station master until 1893. At some point around 1900, a dairy was established at Snarum, which frequently used the station to transport milk and butter. A

cement factory A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mixe ...

was started in 1919, and by 1930 there were three

village shop A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

s in Snarum. This made the station one of the most frequently used stations on the Krøder Line. Snarum Station was formally degraded from a station to a halt on 1 August 1957. On 19 January 1958, passenger traffic on the Krøder Line was stopped and replaced with bus traffic. The line was thereafter only used for freight traffic, which ceased on 1 March 1985. In 1986, the Krøder Line Foundation () was established, which owns and maintains the track and the stations on the Krøder Line, and also operates heritage trains on Sundays.

Facilities

The station house was designed by

. On 1 November 1873, a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

was opened at the station, with Rytterager as post opener. Since 20 March of the same year, it had been possible to send telegraphs from the station. The station building burned down in 1992, but was reconstructed after old plan drawings and finished in 1997, the year of the 125th anniversary of the Krøder Line.

References

{{reflist Disused railway stations in Norway Railway stations in Buskerud Railway stations in Norway closed in 1958 Railway stations in Norway opened in 1872