Railway Infrastructure Upgrade for Freight Transport: Case Study of the Røros Line, Norway

Compared to road trucks, the use of trains to move goods along railway lines is a more sustainable freight transport system. In Norway, where several main lines are single tracks, the insufficient length of many of the existing passing loops considerably restricts the operational and economic benefits of long trains. This brief technical note revolves around the possible upgrade of the Røros line connecting Oslo and Trondheim to accommodate 650 m-long freight trains as an alternative to the heavily trafficked Dovre line. Pivoting on regulatory standards, this exploratory work identifies the minimum set of infrastructure modifications required to achieve the necessary increase in capacity by extending the existing passing loops and creating a branch line. The results indicate that 8 freight train routes can be efficiently implemented, in addition to the 12 existing passenger train routes. This brief technical note employs building information modeling software Trimble Novapoint edition 2024 to position the existing railway infrastructure on topographic data and visualize the suggested upgrade. Notwithstanding the limitations of this exploratory work, dwelling on capacity calculation and the design of infrastructure upgrades, the results demonstrate that modest and well-placed interventions can significantly enhance the strategic value of a single-track rail corridor. This brief technical note sheds light on the main areas to be addressed by future studies to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of the infrastructure upgrade, also covering technical construction and economic aspects.