Underground stations on metro systems are a dime a dozen, but ones located on mainline railways are far less common – with Holmestrand station in Norway being one of them, being located 70 meters beneath a mountain.
Serving the town of Holmestrand in Vestfold, Norway, Holmestrand station is located inside the 12 kilometre long Holmestrandsporten Tunnel. The station is located inside a 500 metre long, 30 metre wide cavern which contains two 350 metre long platforms and four tracks.
The two centre tracks allow for future 250 km/h high speed train services to run express through the station.
Three station entrances are provided – two serve the town of Holmestrand.
Accessed via 100 metre long but level tunnels.
Quite the walk!
And the third exit is located on the top of the mountain.
Accessed via a 70 metre lift shaft.
The station opened on 28 November 2016 as part of a project to duplicate the Vestfold line, with the new 12 kilometre long tunnel replacing the old surface route through the town of Holmestrand.
Originally opened in 1881, the single track route through Holmestrand had been built as a narrow-gauge railway, converted to standard gauge in 1949 and was electrified in 1957.
Footnote: another example
I’ve written about a station inside a mainline tunnel before – “Stazione delle Precedenze” in the Apennine Mountains of Italy.
Further reading
- Holmestrand Station at Wikipedia
- Old Holmestrand Station at Wikipedia
- Holmestrandsporten Tunnel at Wikipedia
- Holmestrand Station – Tekla BIM Awards
- Holmestrand Station – Gottlieb Paludan Architects
- Ground Investigations And Geotechnical Engineering For a 35 M Wide Underground Railway Station, Norway – G. Grøneng; V. Kveldsvik; M. J. Lato; H. Wiig Sagen
- Holmestrand Underground Railway Station – Analysis of Groundwater Inflow and Methods for Water Sealing – Åsmund Ryningen
- Geotechnical Engineering for an Underground Railway Station, Norway – G. Grøneng, V. Kveldsvik, M.J. Lato & H. Wiig, Sagen
- Through the train station at 250 km/h – Teknisk Ukeblad (Norwegian Language)
