Qualla: Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: Introduction

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The site was too small. In 1965, a group of Swedish rail enthusiasts had broken ground on a private railway in forest land at Nykil, calling it the Oxkullens Local Railway. By 1969, they had purchased their first freight wagons. But the cramped forest clearing could never support the realistic railway operation they envisioned. The solution lay 50 kilometers away, where the old Norsholm-Bersbo line had sat abandoned since 1964, its narrow-gauge tracks pulled up, its stations silent. On February 22, 1972, the enthusiasts completed their purchase of the redundant trackbed at Lakvik. They had room at last, and they had work ahead of them.

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: Ghost of a Railway Past

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The tracks the volunteers came to resurrect had their own history. Construction of the Swedish three-foot gauge Norsholm-Bersbo railway began in April 1877, opening to traffic on November 20, 1878. For seven decades, these narrow rails carried passengers and freight through the f...

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: Steam Returns to Lakvik

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The year 1973 brought the railway its first locomotives. A Gmeinder diesel-hydraulic from 1948, the largest 600mm gauge diesel on Swedish rails, arrived from Aspa Bruk and received the number RKJ 4. A Jung steam locomotive from 1925 became RLJ 2, named Lakvik and later renamed A....

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: Building Piece by Piece

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Heritage railways require more than locomotives. The former station building at Lakvik was privately owned, so the volunteers found a similar building from Bersbo, took it apart piece by piece in 1987, and moved it to its new home. In 1997, they acquired the Atvidaberg goods shed...

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: The Line to Risten

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The southern extension became the railway's defining project. Work on the main track through the station area toward Risten began in summer 2002. By November 2003, the Risten station building stood in place, ready for renovation. Tracklaying continued through the decade, yard by ...

Risten-Lakvik Museum Railway: An International Stable

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The locomotive roster grew international. In December 2013, a Maffei steam locomotive from 1925 arrived from the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in Devon, England, becoming RLJ 3 and taking the name Lakvik. The original Risten locomotive, after restoration in 2012, was renamed K.G....