Qualla: Grakallen Line

Grakallen Line: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HuBar, CC BY-SA 2.5. In 1988, the Trondheim city council voted to shut down the tramway. Workers pulled up the tracks on the eastern routes and hauled away the rail. But on the western line - the 8.8-kilometer stretch climbing from St. Olav's Gate through the hillside suburb of Byasen to the forest station at Lian - a group of enthusiasts refused to let go. Two years later, a private company reopened the route. Today, the Grakallen Line is the sole survivor of Trondheim's once-extensive tram network and, since the closure of the Arkhangelsk system in 2004, the northernmost operating tramway on Earth.

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Image: HuBar | CC BY-SA 2.5

Grakallen Line: A Shipping Executive's Vision

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kimberli Mäkäräinen, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Grakallen Line exists because of Robert Millar, head of marketing at the Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab shipping company. By the 1910s, the forested slopes near the peak of Grakallen had become Trondheim's primary recreational area, but getting there required considerable ef...

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Image: Kimberli Mäkäräinen | CC BY-SA 4.0

Grakallen Line: Growing Into the Hills

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirsti I., CC BY-SA 2.0. The first section terminated at Munkvoll, but the line pushed deeper into the landscape almost immediately. An extension to Ugla opened in 1925, and by 1933 the trams reached Lian, their current terminus nestled at the edge of the Bymarka forest. The metre-gauge line had carved i...

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Image: Kirsti I. | CC BY-SA 2.0

Grakallen Line: Death and Resurrection

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Markus Giger, CC BY-SA 4.0. The political battles of the 1980s nearly killed the Grakallen Line along with the rest of Trondheim's trams. In 1983, the city council voted to close the Elgeseter Line and consolidate service onto a single route between Lian and Lade. Eleven new trams were ordered and a depot b...

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Image: Markus Giger | CC BY-SA 4.0

Grakallen Line: The Northernmost Ride

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Municipal Archives of Trondheim from Trondheim, Norway, CC BY 2.0. Six of the original eleven Class 8 trams - numbered 93 through 99, with gaps where retired units have been scrapped - still work the line today. They climb from the city center at 63 degrees north latitude, threading through residential streets before entering the steeper grades ...

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Image: Municipal Archives of Trondheim from Trondheim, Norway | CC BY 2.0