page_title: Vestfold Line
section_title: Planning
hierarchical_section_title: Vestfold Line / History / Planning
caption_attribution_description: English: Vestfold Line and the main road Oslo-Stavanger, north of Holmestrand, Norway
context_page_description: The Vestfold Line is a 137.79-kilometer railway line which runs between Drammen and Eidanger in Norway. The line connects to the Drammen Line at the northern terminus at Drammen Station and continues as the Bratsberg Line past Skien Station. The line is exclusively used for passenger trains, which are provided by the Norwegian State Railways, which connect northwards to Oslo and south-westwards to Grenland. The 13-kilometer section from Eidanger to Skien is often colloquially included in the Vestfold Line.The standard gauge line is electrified at 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC and has twelve remaining stations. The Vestfold Line runs through the coastal region of Vestfold and serves major towns including Holmestrand, Tønsberg, Sandefjord and Larvik, as well as Sandefjord Airport, Torp.
  The section to Larvik Station was opened on 13 October 1881 and the remainder, including an extension to Skien Station, opened on 23 November 1882. The line was originally variously known as the Drammen–Skien Line, the County Line and the Jarlsberg Line, until it became known as the Vestfold Line. Horten was served via the now closed 7-kilometer Horten Line from Skoppum Station.
context_section_description: Public opinion started debating the need for a railway through Vestfold in the late 1860s, when the Randsfjorden Line was built to Drammen, opening in 1968. The parliamentarians from Jarlsberg and Larvik County (renamed Vestfold in 1919) appealed to the government in 1869 for the construction of a railway through Vestfold south from Drammen to Larvik and onwards to Langefjorden. The request was positively accepted by the government, who instructed the railway director to carry out surveys through Vestfold, prioritizing it higher than the surveys through Østfold.
  The country experienced an economic boom starting in 1871, with demands throughout the country for railways to be built. Official planning of a railway through Vestfold to Brevik commenced with a royal resolution on 24 July 1871. In addition to providing a regional rail service to Vestfold, a steamship service could be set up from Larvik to Frederikshavn, Denmark. There was also at the time problems with the inner parts of the Oslofjord and the Drammensfjord icing during winter, and access to the ports on the outer fjord would ease the export situation for industry.
  There were a multitude of proposals for where the railway should run. The only points of agreement were that the line should run through Tønsberg, Sandefjord and Larvik, and the line between the three towns was the least controversial. North of Tønsberg there was more disunity. One proposal was to run the railway from Vestfossen Station on the Kongsberg Line along the east shore of Eikeren and down to Tønsberg along a route similar to that which the Tønsberg–Eidsfoss Line would later follow. A branch line would then be built to Horten. This alternative allowed the line to run through an area with good access to lumber, which the railway would aid export. The main disadvantage was that the route was 20 kilometers (12 mi) longer than via Sande.
  Alternatively a passage through Sande was proposed, although fourteen different routes were proposed. Three main ones were the inner, outer and combined coastal alternatives. The outer followed the shore of the Oslofjord, would be 111 kilometers (69 mi) and would run through Holmestrand, Horten and Åsgårdstrand before reaching Tønsberg. The combined and inner would be 107 and 102 kilometers (66 and 63 mi), respectively, and both involved building a branch line to Horten. A major argument against the coastal route was that the towns already had a good steamship service, with services several daily departures. A third major alternative was to bypass the coast altogether and build a connection from the Kongsberg Line at Skollenborg Station down the valley of Lågendalen to Larvik. The main advantage of this alternative was the large potential for hydroelectricity along Numedalslågen.
  Jarlsberg and Larvik County Council and the town councils appointed a railway committee, which asked the county governor on 27 November 1873 to issue shares in the new railway. The county bought shares worth 400,000 Norwegian krone (NOK). Shares for a coastal railway were bought for NOK 4.9 million, twice that of the interior route. The coastal route was expected to pay a dividend of three to four percent, compared to two and a half percent for the interior. Ahead of the county council meeting in December 1873 the county governor recommended that an application be sent to the government without a preferred route, but the majority of the county council's members voted in favor the interior alternative.
  At the time the railway was variously referred to as the County Line and the Jarlsberg Line, both named for the historic countship of Jarlsberg. By 1874 the state railway commission had considered the line and had concluded that it should be built with narrow gauge. Only its chair, Professor Broch, voted in favor of standard gauge, and at the same time recommended that the Drammen Line be converted to the wider gauge. The advantage of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge was that it would cut construction costs by a third. By then the railway director, Carl Abraham Pihl, had concluded in disfa
caption: Section of the line near Holmestrand in 1902
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