Trondheim–Bodø

The Nordland Line crosses the Arctic Circle — ten hours north to Saltstraumen.

The facts

When it is busy

Busiest: July. Quietest: January. Guest arrivals per month as a share of the route's own busiest month. Figures from Statistics Norway, averaged over seven full years. They count people who stay overnight, so day trippers and cruise passengers are not included.

Stops along the way

• Trondheim · 0 h
  The wharves along the Nidelva, the bicycle lift up Brubakken, and Norway's oldest university city.
• Steinkjer · 2 h
  At the head of the Trondheimsfjord, with Bronze Age rock carvings at Bølareinen just outside town.
• Snåsa · 2.9 h
  The heart of South Sámi Norway, with its own language centre, and Lake Snåsavatnet lying still between forested ridges.
• Grong · 3.7 h
  The Namsen, "queen of salmon rivers", and the Fiskum falls where a fish ladder lets you watch the salmon climb.
• Mosjøen · 6 h
  Sjøgata — northern Norway's longest unbroken row of 19th-century timber houses, and a zipline down from Øyfjellet.
• Mo i Rana · 7.2 h
  The industrial town that is the gateway to the Svartisen glacier and to Grønligrotta, Norway's best-known limestone cave.
• Svartisen · 8 h
  Norway's second-largest glacier. The Engabreen arm pushes down towards Holandsfjorden and ends barely 20 metres above sea level.
• Polarsirkelen · 8 h
  66°33′ north, marked by cairns on the Saltfjellet plateau. North of here the sun does not set at midsummer.
• Lønsdal · 8.2 h
  The high-mountain station right at the Arctic Circle — the way into Saltfjellet–Svartisen National Park.
• Rognan · 8.9 h
  At the head of the Saltdalsfjord, with a boatbuilding tradition and the Blood Road Museum on the prisoners who built the road.
• Fauske · 9.2 h
  The marble town — its pink Norwegian marble lines the UN building in New York. The bus north to Narvik starts here.
• Saltstraumen · 9.8 h
  The world's strongest tidal current — 400 million cubic metres of water forced through a 150-metre strait four times a day.
• Bodø · 9.8 h
  European Capital of Culture 2024, the end of the railway and the ferry port for Lofoten.