Bane Nor suspends Oslo’s largest rail project



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March 2017: The government gathers the Norwegian press in Oslo S. to show off its own rail plans. March 2021: The biggest individual project they bragged about is lost.

This image was iconic. Abid Q. Raja of the Liberal Party applauds his own proposal for a new National Transport Plan in March 2017. The government and supporting parties chose Oslo S as the ‘platform’ to sell the plan. They wanted to push plans for a new train tunnel under Oslo. Now these plans are being thrown into nothingness. On the left Nikolai Astrup (H). Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H). Photo: Cornelius Poppe, NTB scanpix

This spring, the government will present a proposal for a new National Transportation Plan. Here they explain which road and rail projects they want to prioritize.

The last time such a plan was presented was in March 2017. At that time, the Solberg government and the supporting parties gathered the Norwegian press in Oslo S. The site was chosen because the government wanted to advance the plans to build a new railway tunnel under Oslo.

In today’s two-track tunnel, the Oslo Tunnel, capacity has exploded. A key reason why there will be no more departures to and from the capital is that not many more trains can be brought into the tunnel. Today around 1000 here, a day.

The Department of Transport Economics thought a few years ago that it was pointless to spend billions of crowns on planned railway development in eastern Norway, before a new tunnel under the capital is ready. The tunnel will simply double the capacity.

The government wanted to say something else.

A lot has happened in the last four years.

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Bane Nor and the city council will demolish the neighborhood in the middle of Oslo. Here a “highway junction” will be built for the railroad.

Ask Hareide to clean up the “scandal”

On Monday, Bygg. Was unable to report that Bane Nor canceled the main competition to plan the tunnel project.

According to the construction industry, this comes a year after Bane Nor announced the consulting contract for the new railway tunnel project through Oslo.

And this is happening despite 150 million being set aside in the state budget for 2021 to plan the project.

The loan itself will be worth between NOK 300 million and NOK 450 million. Aftenposten knows that one of the largest consulting firms in the country, Rambøll, has been working on preparing a tender for about two and a half years.

– This is a community-funded massive resource solution. It is devastating to the existence of an environment of continuous competition in Norway for the development of Norwegian railways. We hope that the Minister of Transport and Communications will summon the parties to his office and clean up this scandal. Soon.

This is what Liv Kari Skudal Hansteen, CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineers, tells the Construction Industry website bygg.no.

Bygg.no has not been able to get a comment from Transport Minister Knut Arild Hareide.

Elin Bustnes Amundsen is the project manager for the tunnel at Bane Nor. He declined to comment on the case Monday afternoon.

Bane Nor: a sad situation

Technically, the competition has focused on what is called “technical master plan and municipal sub-plan with impact assessment for a new double track in the tunnel from Oslo S to Lysaker”.

The Oslo Planning and Construction Agency has been working on the project for a long time.

– This is a very sad situation for us and for the industry that has invested a lot of time and effort in competing for this assignment, says Bane Nor CEO Gorm Frimannslund.

He says nothing can now be said about the future of the project until one chooses to start the planning work again. In 2017, it was said that at best the tunnel should be ready by 2032.

For every year that passes now, there are changes, says Frimannslund.

The contrast to the sale of what is still the current transportation plan from March 2017 has now grown large.

This they promised in 2017

It was a Thursday in early March 2017 when H, Frp and the supporting parties Venstre and KrF announced that NOK 1 billion would be spent on the new transport plan. About 45 percent were going to go to the railroad.

– The automobile festival In fact, the Progress Party has also become very fond of railways, said Finance Minister Siv Jensen (Frp).

The following projects stood out in particular:

  • New train tunnel under Oslo
  • Construction of the Ringerik line was due to begin in 2021.

The plan was still to build both Indre Intercity, a railway between Oslo and Hamar, Tønsberg and Fredrikstad, and Ytre Intercity, to Lillehammer, Porsgrunn / Skien and Halden. With modern double courts.

Last week, Aftenposten was able to report that the Ringeriksbanen will still be built. But that startup now appears to be in 2024-2025, and it will likely be New Roads, not Bane Nor, who will build it.

We also write that the entire Intercity plan as it was in 2017 will be discontinued. Now a new one will be added, with an amputated Internal Intercity and with only remnants of the External Intercity.

– We will complete the projects we are working on before starting new ones, said Knut Arild Hareide.

This now also includes a new railway tunnel in the heart of Railway Norway.

Bane Nor and Jernbanedirektoratet disagree?

The Norwegian Railway Directorate, on behalf of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, largely manages the Norwegian railways.

Svein Horrisland, Head of Communications, says management’s prioritization of the Oslo tunnel “has not changed.” But this increased cost in the Bane Nor projects “makes it difficult to obtain all the measurements as quickly as desired.”

– Especially when Bane Nor keeps its O&M priority, Horrisland writes in email to Byggeindustrien.

The latter shows a possible disagreement between Bane Nor and the Norwegian Railway Directorate on what priorities should be set on the railway.

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