Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

CONSTRUCTION OF BERGEN-KRISTIANIA RAILWAY. 349 crossed the plateau ; in fact, the high ground was practically an un- explored region, inhabited during a few months of the year by but a few herdsmen. As a first instal- ment, the Storthing voted, in 1875, the necessary money for building a narrow-gauge railway from Bergen to Vossevangan; and this line, which required some clever if not difficult engineering, was opened for traffic in 1883. While it was building, a survey of the mountains beyond and observations of the snowfall were begun, in anticipation of the time when an extension eastwards of Voss should be de- manded. In 1876 the preliminary survey was completed, and next year appeared a first estimate of the cost. During the six years 1884—89 regular snow measurements were taken by peasants acquainted with the mountain districts. To assist them the State engineers erected at suitable intervals, on masonry bases, long poles, all duly numbered, from which the depth of the snow- fall could be ascertained. After nineteen years of surveying and deliberation, the route was more or less definitely fixed to pass from Voss up the Raun Valley to the Urhovde mountain, through which a tunnel would be driven to Myrdal on the eastern side—on to the “ divide ” at Tauge- vand Lake, and thence through the Finse Valley past the Uste Lake to low ground at Gulsvik, which point would act as a temporary terminus while the last section to Roa was being completed. A grant for the Voss-Taugevand section was made in 1894, and in the following year began the setting out of the line, which included the fixing of the axis of the great Gravehals or Urhovde tunnel, 5,800 yards in length, by far THE BERGEN RAILWAY BETWEEN OPSET AND VOSS. A SUMMER VIEW. the longest of the 178 tunnels which occur on the Bergen-Kristiania railway. This work oc- cupied six years, being greatly hindered by the intense cold Motin = , , .. , nj tain Section and the exceedingly difficult surveye(j. character of the country, which made it necessary in places for the surveyors to be suspended by ropes over the edge of precipices while making their observations. As the Gravehals tunnel would have to be pierced from both ends simultaneously, and the mountain interposed an obstacle over which a transport road could not be carried, the engineers constructed a road up from Voss to Opset at the western portal, and