Kiruna - Narvik: The World's Most Northern Railway (standard-gauge) by "Polar Express" Train 

I did the wonderful Stockholm to Narvik journey in 1982 - when the train not only had a 'bistro car' but best of all a 'cinema' car too! I couldn't afford a sleeper and the couchettes were sold out, but was offered a seat (reclining?) in a compartment for six, with little tables between us. I shared with a lady and her dog Laika who had her own seat until the compartment filled up later. The movement of the train at floor level must have been too much for poor Laika - who regurgitated her dinner! Such was the camaraderie amongst us previous strangers - that no one minded and we all helped clean up! So, the three over-riding memories of the journey were: The Cinema car - Passing the Arctic Circle sign alongside the tracks - and the dog being sick!

what a memories this film bring back to me,,,,,working on a ore carrier vessel beeen discharged in Narvik an took a train to Stockholm,,thiat was some time in 1964,,September,,,thank you,,,,greetings from Chile

You said right. Travelling by train is better than travelling by oceanic liners, because of some ecological problems with these ships. Certainly, in your video you have told (written) about some intermodal railroad roots, connecting Narvik via Kiruna and Lulea with Stockholm and Oslo. You have pointed that this must be very long journey (about 27 hours). So it would be better and more comfortable while travelling by train instead of ships. The trains are environmentally friendly and Offotbahnen are electrified. Besides, Arctic nature is very beautiful and wonderful. The scenic landscapes are marvellous. I adore Scandinavian nature. It's not of the question to talk about it. Besides, Kiruna, Abisko-Østra and Narvik are one of the best places in the world to see Northern lights. It's really fantastic and magnificent. It's a real magic. Finally I would like to admit, there exists Polar Express from Vorkuta to Labitnanghi in Russia. People may enjoy and admire amazing landscapes of the Urals, because the train travels through the mountains. They are really beautiful. The train makes a dozen of stops travelling from one point to another. Thanks for your video. It was worth (viewing) watching. Wanted to know if there exists any rail root from Helsinki to Lulea and Narvik. Give you a big like to your video. Bye.❤

I travelled with Kiruna to Narvik Express back in 1966! I will enjoy the return trip!! 😁👍

You got the best way to present these content, natural sound without any music, descriptions and history are very apt and summarized. Doesn't feel like its a 40 min long video.. it quite immersive. :) Thank you.

Did Stockholm to Narvik a few years ago.. Loved the northern scenery and Narvik is a beautiful city. Thanks for this trip down memory lane.

Fun fact, Narvik is 68 degrees north. For comparation to North America 68 degrees north is about halfway between Fairbanks and Barrow in Alaska, north of the Brooks range.

A great video! No irritating music or narration. Well done!

Great trip report !

A great video of a beautiful rail journey. Thank you!

Thanks for this amazing trip! 🙋‍♀️

Beautiful video, thank you!

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Thank you for your content, another 40 minutes of joy! But needs a small correction: railway line to Murmansk is not the northernmost on broad gauge, not even in the region. First, the line branches before Murmansk and goes northwest to Nickel and Pechenga for another 150km or so. But the current northernmost line is Obskaya-Bovanenkovo-Karskaya, 572km long line operated by Gazprom on Yamal peninsula.

a lot of work for you! thank you for a great and informative journey!

Did this trip beginning in Gothenburg to Stockholm and then arriving in Narvik on the 1745 train. The whole trip was enjoyable. This was when SJ ran the entire route.

An excellent presentation. thank you

Nicely done video showing a beautiful and remote part of the world. Thanks for sharing your content.

Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful❤❤... Both your presentation and the landscape.

9:49 I'm on this route, going from Kiruna towards the Lofoten archipelago once to twice a year and I NEVER had bad weather on the route between Kiruna and Riksgränsen; If I had bad weather, it was while going downhill after crossing the border As for the "mild winters" ... that differs a lot on which side of the mountain range you are: in coastal areas of Norway it's rather mild, however only few miles inland you can have entirely different temperatures in the valleys. And east of the mountain range, the winter is definetly not mild. It's a normal night with -20°C and it's concidered as cold at less than -30°C.

Beautiful scenery to say the least. A word about cruise ships....they do have their place and are a lot cleaner now than in years past. The romance of ocean travel has always been with us and I think always will, it's simply another way to see the world.......

Beautifully filmed and narrated. Thank you!

It's a beautiful train trip. Thank You very much.

Film mi je izredno vsec, cudovito potovanjez vlakom od Kirune do Narvika; romanticna pokrajina, zasanjani gozdovi, jezera in koncno modrina Ofotfjorda in pristanisce Narvik Z veseljem bi se pridruzil na tem cudovitem potovanju ❤😂❤

What an extraordinary trip. It was great you met IORE locomotive train.

Thank u. I Moved from Abisko when i was 12. We moved to Kiruna central.... U saw the school very fast. My home is still standing next to the school my uncel with family has that house now. Now i live aboute 120 miles from there but i so miss my Abisko. Once a northen girl always a northen girl. My dad worked all his life on that railway. We also have rallare in the family past... look in to ouer folk history about svarta björn

This is a fab stretch of trainline, loved it. Beautiful scenery. I have been to Arjeplog, just amazing. From me Janet a new subscriber!

Excellent Vídeo doc7 . Kind regards from Spain

Thank you for this wonderful video reminding me of good memories.

I took this train last summer after hiking the 450 km hiking trail "Kungsleden" (kings trail) it is the longest hiking trail in Europe, you never go below 500 m over sea level

The IORE uses SA-3 couplers like the Former Soviet Union VL82 VL80 VL10 M62 (Deutsche Reichsbahn Baureihe 120) locomotives. Excellent report

Great video, I loved the captions along the way. One interesting fact I didn't see in the captions is that this railway is listed by the UN as one of the central pieces of infrastructure for humanity everywhere, because it is such a significant contribution to the world's iron and steel production. More broadly, I hope we in Norway will soon take to our senses and build the missing railway link, from Bodø to Tromsø via Narvik. That would enable roundtrips through Scandinavia by rail.

Sweden is very lovely

Great video, which expertly captures the experience of riding this train through the wonderful scenery in Lapland. I also took this same trip back in May and stayed at the Scandic in Narvik. A couple of minor points. The Glacier Express does have small opening droplight windows on the entrance doors, but they are tiny. However, they are useful for filming. Also, these Vy Norrland trains did continue running to Narvik during the pandemic, but were only advertised as going to Riksgransen, and passengers could not be conveyed across the closed Norwegian border. The trains continued empty to/from Narvik for servicing at the depot. I did the trip from Stockholm to Abisko in December 2020, and saw amazing Aurora Borealis above Lake Tornetrask from the beach at Tornehamn, very close to the station at Bjorkliden. The Arctic is a beautiful part of the world.

Just went on this journey last month! It's so interesting to see what it looks like without all the snow!

Comparison at the end surprised me! Greeting from Montenegro, it gives me excitement and that familiar feeling of home, so far away! 🇲🇪 /🇳🇴

Love the videos...

Beautifully interesting.

Very nice shot.

Great ride in the wild 👍

Abisko looks really nice ❤

It was a very nice presentation

Very nice series of videos. Would love to see the same trip in winter time through a snowy landscape!

Thanks for the video. I think that the wind noise enhanced the feeling of the journey in such a remote part of the world. On the eco comment, the electrical consumption is also reduce by the use of regenerative braking whereby the decending trains turn their motors to generators thus putting power back into the system for uphill trains.

Thanks !!

Beograd-Bar locomotives with Bo-Bo wheels where actually built at Rade Konkar plant in Zagreb in the 70s. Co-Co locomotives ASEA licensed where built at Electroputere from 1966 to 1990 and where mostly used in Romania, Bulgaria and part of them in the former Yugoslavia. Both projects where based on the ASEA projects and there are currently used even today in the Balkans.

I love the view, things that I have not seen

Great video, doc7austin's DreamlinerCentral. But you were wrong at about 36:08 where you said "You can spot the Beisfjorden in the back". Beisfjorden would - with this camera angle - be on your 8-9 o'clock on your left hand side behind the Fagernes Mt., continuing inland from the Narvik Harbor. What you're actually seeing in the footage is the inner parts of the Ofoten Fjord, as it widens out to the South West connecting to Vestfjord, which really isn't a fjord but rather the open sea stretched between the Lofoten (Svolvær) & Vesterålen Archipelago on your right hand as you sail out and the Often (Narvik) and Salten (Bodø) areas on your left hand side as you plow the Deep Blue into the Arctic Norwegian Sea sailing South West. At 40:10 the Skjomtinden Peak is much more famously known as 'Den Sovende Dronning', in English; 'The Sleeping Queen'. Another famous mountain, centered at 40:20 is 'Winston Churchill'. Above the city center you can really see the likeness with his great forehead. The mountain is missing the cigar, of course! - Greetings from a Certified Tourist Guide of the Region.

Thanks for the upload and kia ora from New Zealand.Train buff, musician &sound guy here, I have no experience with iPhone but with a separate mic you can use a wind filter or a condom works ok.

Wonderful video. Curiously I was planning to do this trip in early September but work prevented me from going. Now planning to do the Helsinki to Kolari trip in November instead. On the noise bit, have you considered using a Shure MV88 microphone? You could set it up on a lead and a clip so it is just inside the window even if the phone is outside.

Great video, I hope I will take that train someday... A small correction: it's the Norwegian Sea in that region, not the North Sea.

Thank you for a beautiful video. I might point out that the broad gauge rail linking Saint Petersburg to Murmansk, named that Kirov Railway, slightly breaks the record for most-northerly-constructed and operation rail service by several decades of minutes of latitude (33 minutes or approximately 38 miles farther north). Narvik, 68° 25'. Murmansk, 68° 58'.

Thank you for sharing...I ate dinner and drank wine whilst enjoying your journey which left me in awe of the beautiful scenery and with so many questions...why are the houses painted red, why didn't you sleep on such a long journey, why isn't there a buffett car for meals ...

I did the trip many years ago, but I also rode the Murmansk railway. I believe the latter is a bit more northern than the Ofot railway, and so is the Nickel RR, also on the Kola peninsula.

"never take cruise ships to Scandinavia" ... take a guess why e.g. the Hurtigruten line comes up with various hybrid drives and in a few years time only hybrid electric ships will be allowed to enter some of the fjords. Norway is going electric pretty much anywhere. "Cruise ships pollute the environment, trains do not" ... well, although there aren't that many left, there are still a few main lines in Norway which aren't electrified. thus the longest rail line, the Nordland Line, lacks electrification to this day. With diesel trains running the track up and down they definetly pollute the air as well ... sure, still makes sense, but one can't claim that they don't pollute at all.

Красотищща!

Need an external mic for iPhone, in order to minimize the wind noise. "RØDE - VideoMic ME-L" is one example.

Also would like to recommend the Flåmsbanen and Raumabanen both of which are more scienc than Bergensbanen in my opinion.

A mistake was found in the subtitles. The Swedish rc6 locomotive is similar to the jž 441 locomotive and not to the 461 locomotive. In many pictures, the two locomotives have the same paintwork, but the main difference is in the manufacturer and the number of drive axles.

doc7austin’s DreamlinerCentral : AWESOME!

Perhaps the world's northernmost standard-gauge railway with passenger traffic. But the Kirkenes-Bjørnevatn line is further north.

not just swedish loco-engeneering but also carriages found their way to the balkans: Blue ex-swedish compartment carriages were in service around Ploce(Croatia) in 2010.

Superb n

The LKAB trains which are transporting iron has two special wagons. One is painted golden and it is the 1000 produced wagon. If you spots it you need to finish your drink 🎉. And this month (dec 2023) LKAB released the rainbow wagon painted in 🌈. Spotting that wagon must mean that everyone shall hug each other, or ? 😊

Could you put a small sock over the microphone of your phone? I've heard others do it, but I'm no techie. Your videography and written narrative is great. I have followed you for a long time now. Are you ever coming back to New Zealand or Australia? Appreciate all the hard work and hours of info and research etc to make this interesting and informative. Thankyou!! 😊

It's easy to get rid of the windsound,just turn of the sound on your TV. It's a very good text narrat👍👍👍👍👍

Good Christmas movie (Polar Express)

You missed those German warships that got stranded by the crew during the WW2, it just after the bend of the railway where you could see that big road bridge.

Have you more content from Sweden ?

if you want a good sound, use external mic for your camera and keep it inside of the window to avoid wind distortion

Swedish Lapland ,cool ! 😲😲😲😲

I'd recommend you switch to a specialized camera for your videos. You can either get a modern compact camera, which offer near DSLR like qualities, with MUCH better nighttime photography, while still being the size of a cellphone. Alternatively, you can get a gimbal camera for a lighter/comfortable shooting experience. I'd also recommend getting an Insta360 X2, as a back-up or covert camera, for the times when you cannot use your regular camera. For better control over audio, I'd recommend using an external mic with a wind muff. That allows you separate control over the audio track, for easier editing, especially to get rid of unwanted noises. Always looking forward to your videos!

I think that you can remove wind sound on iMovie. You are good at taking good video on iPhone. You don’t need any other camera. Did you put iPhone on one of those gimbal? It is unbelievable that railway this far north is electrified. If it rain, snow or fog in this area most of the time, how do they maintain beautiful roads and rail tracks there? I wonder how would be driving there.

Thanks for a great video! Incorrect about permafrost though - there is basically no permafrost in Sweden, only a few spots.

Can I take a bicycle on board the Kiruna-Narvik train? I'm planning to cross northern Norway by bike, but due to time constraints, it would be nice to travel part of the route by train 🙂

Please tell us what the music on the infto to this vid is_

It seems that the Yugoslav BoBo Rc6 derivatives, JZ class 441 were built in house by Rade Koncar of Zagreb and others, and the CoCo derivative JZ Class 461 was efectively built by Electroputere of Romania.

Get a windscreen/dead cat/wind muff for your phone. It’s that fuzzy thing you see on boom mics etc. They make small ones for phones

Kiruna to riksgransen

Some faults in the comments 1. The railroad to Narvik goes down in altitude from Kiruna. The highest point of the railroad is not so far from Kiruna. 2. Abisko is one of the places with less snow and rain in Sweden 3. The maintains of the railroad is done all year around. The ironore goes to Narvik all year around and also to Luleå when Baltic is free from ice. 4. The Germans doesn't access the iron mine in Kiruna. Not only GB where fighting Germans in Narvik also French legion among other allied country's

Thank you, it's beautiful! You know, the northernmost railway in the world is Russian "Obskaya-Bovanenkovo-Karskaya" line, but I think you meant the European track 1435mm, not Russian 1520mm

Am Australian to film this train!, hehe. Aussies would go anywhere, we’re locals won’t go.

Where can I find tickets on this train?

The world's northernmost railway is in fact from Obskaya to Karskaya in the Yamal in Russia, Russian gauge.

The train should be equipped with a dining car for a trip of that length 🤔

Please put a low pass filter in editing, nice video btw!

Maybe you should use a external mic with a death cat !?

Great video! I recognise some of these stations from railcowgirl's channel. 👍 Cruise ships are becoming far less polluting. Train travel is by no means pollutant-free. Whilst electric trains are on a local level, they still draw huge amounts of electricity, a large amount of that originating from gas and coil fired power stations. Diesel trains produce a significant amount at local level, so it's not quite as simple as saying 'trains don't pollute'. In an ideal world all trains would be electric and all of that electricity would be from renewable sources but sadly it just isn't and won't be for quite some time. It will get better though. 🙂 I ❤️ train travel.

The ABBA connection to this railway and the Narvik region. The brunette Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) was born in Narvik region. Offspring of a German soldier, Alfred Hasse (presumed killed by allies in 1945) and Norwegian girl, Synni Lyngstad (1926-1947) Frida b. Nov 1945 Orphaned Sep 1947 Grandmother took baby Frida to Sweden when Frida was about 18 months old. Frida was one of the unwanted "war babies" by her birth nation. Her mother was also unwanted. A horrible beginning to Frida's life. Frida's mother died of kidney failure/poisoning. Believed to be murdered for her relationship with German soldier. Frida obtained Swedish citizenship at age 16.

Don,t forget why this railway was built . Not tourism!

Battle of Narvik: British, Polish, Norge and French forces vs German/Austrian forces

Sorry but the bergen Line is much more scenic for me. i know its only my opinion but there you have it.

What do you do for income? How come you are able to make so many of these extended trips? You have family who don't come with you?

🙂

Strasznie trzeszczy nie uzywaj mikrofonu na zewnatrz

It amazes me how so many people think that an electric train or electric car doesn't cause pollution, but that electricity comes from a power plant that creates huge amounts of pollution, especially coal or a gas fired power plants. Electricity does not come without some pollution, one way or another even from wind or solar there's still pollution to create those wind generators or solar panels.

disagree with about cruise ships polluting the air as all the new modern ships are now Enviromentally friendly

Lol train pollute the same....Coal burned electricity

Мне очень понравился это видео ! Спасибо большое за вашу щедрость, поэдравляю ! Из Бразилии - Маркос.

Excellent video!!! you need to take a trip on the Alaska Railroad !! Seward- (Whittier)- Anchorage--Fairbanks. Maybe someday! Best time to do a trip to Alaska is mid May to late July. It rains less and the weather is beautiful and not cold.