Krøderbanen

Its own people call it Norway's longest museum. Krøderbanen is a whole railway kept as one exhibit: 26 kilometres of track from Vikersund to Krøderen, opened in 1872, with its stations, its goods sheds and its water tower, and steam trains that run on summer Sundays as the line's own trains did a century ago.

It was built narrow gauge to link the lake and rivers of Hallingdal, where timber was floated, with Drammen and the coast, and rebuilt to standard gauge in 1909. For eighteen months before that it was part of the Bergen Line: from June 1908 travellers from Bergen came down the lake by steamer to Krøderen and took this train south. When the Bergen Line opened through Hønefoss at the end of 1909, the traffic left. Passenger trains stopped in 1958 and goods in 1985, and in the same year the Storting, Norway's parliament, decided that the line should be kept as a museum railway.

Norsk Jernbaneklubb, the Norwegian Railway Club, has run veteran trains here since 1977, and its volunteers still drive, fire and guard them. Buskerudmuseene looks after the track and the buildings. The ride takes about an hour each way, through the woods and farms of Modum, at a pace that leaves time to look.

The steam train's day starts at Krøderen, at the south end of the lake of the same name. At 10:30 it leaves for Vikersund, and at 12:00 it sets off back. Either end makes a start: Vikersund is on the main line, with Bergen Line trains and buses from Drammen, and Krøderen has the parking, the café and the museum.

Up from Vikersund

From Vikersund the line leaves the main line and climbs. The builders gave it a gradient of 1 in 45 out of Vikersund and six sharp curves, some of the sharpest on any Norwegian railway, and it crosses the main road six times on the way up. The train calls at Sysle, a red station of 1894, and Snarum, one of the line's two original stations of 1872, both now owned by the railway's foundation. At Kløftefoss it meets the railcar coming the other way, and the two trains cross the old way, at a staffed station, with flag signals and points thrown by hand. On Sundays in early summer many passengers get off here for the western show in "Deadwood City", about 100 metres from the platform.

The last stretch runs to Krøderen, where the station has been protected as a technical monument. Its buildings date from the steam age and so does its equipment: an engine shed, a turntable, a water tower and a goods shed, now an exhibition. The steam train arrives at 13:08 and waits until 14:50, long enough for waffles at the outdoor café and a swim from the bathing place on the lake, 100 metres away.

The trains

The steam trains are pulled by 411, a 104-tonne four-cylinder engine built in 1922 for the Gjøvik Line and newly restored, or by 225, a smaller Thunes engine of 1911. Behind them run wooden carriages of the early twentieth century and a kiosk wagon. The shorter trips between Krøderen, Kløftefoss and Snarum are worked by a red type 91 railcar of the 1950s and its driving trailer.

Krøderbanen runs on summer Sundays, with a few extra days in August and a short autumn season. Tickets are sold in advance, and you collect yours at the station at least 20 minutes before the train leaves.

Summer Sundays, 28 June – 30 August 2026

The steam train makes two round trips over the whole line.

Between them the railcar makes short trips from Krøderen: 12:30 to Kløftefoss and on to Snarum (back at 14:07), and 14:15 to Kløftefoss. On 16 and 30 August a railcar also leaves Krøderen at 17:50 for Vikersund (18:44) and returns at 18:55 as far as Kløftefoss. Snarum and Sysle are request stops on some trains. On some Sundays the railcar's trips are run with steam as well.

Special days and autumn

• 8 and 9 August — the train robbery days: a staged western hold-up of the 12:05 from Vikersund, with both steam engines in one train.
• 22 August — a Saturday dusk train. 23 August — the big operating day, on day tickets.
• 6 and 13 September — steam between Krøderen and Snarum only, at 11:30 and 13:30, back from Snarum at 12:25 and 14:25.
• 31 October — a ghost train from Krøderen to Kløftefoss at 17:00, 18:00 and 19:00.
• 29 November — the Christmas train, on the first Sunday of Advent.

The 2027 season is not yet published. Times as of October 2026, from Krøderbanen (opens in a new tab).

Getting there

On a Sunday from Oslo, take the Vy train to Drammen (09:19 from Oslo S) and Brakar bus 100, which reaches Vikersund at 11:10, in time for the noon steam train. Going home, the Bergen Line train leaves Vikersund at 17:44 and reaches Oslo S at 19:05. Krøderen is about 105 km from Oslo by road, and both end stations have free parking. Connections from Entur (opens in a new tab), for a Sunday in November 2026; check the summer timetable before you go.

Tickets are sold in advance through Krøderbanen's own pages, and any seats left can be bought at Krøderen before the train. A return between Vikersund and Krøderen is NOK 360 for an adult and NOK 180 for a child of 4 to 15; a single is NOK 240. Children under four travel free but need a ticket of their own, and a family ticket for two adults and up to three children is NOK 830.

At the station you swap your booking for an old-style card ticket, which you keep. The goods-shed exhibition at Krøderen is included, and dogs travel free. 2026 fares, checked October 2026.

No rail pass covers Krøderbanen. It is a museum railway with its own fares, and it is not among the Norwegian railway companies whose trains Interrail and Eurail cover. Everyone pays the museum's fare.

A pass can bring you to the start. Vy's trains are covered by an Interrail Norway Pass or a Global Pass: the local train from Oslo to Drammen needs no reservation, while the Bergen Line trains that stop at Vikersund are regional trains with a compulsory one. The Brakar bus from Drammen is not covered. For this trip alone a pass is not worth buying — it pays only when the Krøderen Line is one day of a longer journey through Norway.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's table of railway companies (opens in a new tab).

The line sits between two lakes, the Tyrifjord at Vikersund and Krøderfjorden at Krøderen, and these four are within a short drive of either end.

The trains run only by day, and most visitors come out from Oslo, about an hour and twenty minutes from Vikersund by road. To stay over, there is a hotel on the Tyrifjord near Vikersund, and at the Krøderen end the hotels are further up the lake, around Noresund and on Norefjell.

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