1902: The Opening of a Norwegian Rail Station Built for Both Passengers and Cargo

January 20, 1902

A railway station in the Alnabru neighborhood of Norway’s city of Kristiania was opened. At the time, Norway was part of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Under this personal union, those countries had the same monarch; the capital typically alternated throughout each year between Kristiania and the Swedish city of Stockholm. Less than four years after the debut of Alnabru Station in the former of those cities, the dissolution of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway took place and Norway instead became an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1925, Kristiania was renamed Oslo and this city (also constituting both a county and municipality) remains the capital of Norway.

Alnabru Station was built as part of the Trunk Line, the oldest public railway line in Norway. The Trunk Line had been built by English civil engineer Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) and it first went into service on September 1, 1854.

The wooden building at Alnabru Station was designed by Norwegian architect Finn Iver Andreas Knudsen (1864-1911). While intended to serve primarily as a facility for handling cargo transported via the Trunk Line, this station was also used to serve train passengers. This station remained in operation for nearly seven decades. It was closed on June 14, 1971, and subsequently demolished.

The above photo of Alnabru Station was taken in 1922 by Carl Normann (1886-1960).

Photo Credit: Nasjonalbiblioteket (National Library of Norway); licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

For more information on Alnabru Station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnabru_station