Spitsbergen - Glaciers, Polar Bears, and Narrow Gauge

Few places in the world combined glaciers, polar bears, and narrow gauge trains. The far northern island of Spitsbergen, the largest of Norway's Svalbard island group, did feature narrow gauge steam engines hauling coal trains from the mines to the ship loading docks until 1959.

Only one locomotive and a few coal cars survive today, but at one time it was a busy operation with at least five steam engines running on 900 mm (35.5 inch) gauge



The coal hauling narrow gauge lines(s) worked out of Ny Alesund in northern Spitsbergen, the northernmost railroads in the world with the possible exception of a short spur in Russia. The arrow in the below map indicates the location of Ny Alesund and the coal mining area. (There are other coal mining locations further south on Spitsbergen)



One of the highlights of my 2006 cruise on the 44-passenger "Professor Multanovskyi" was seeing 0-4-0 Number 2 at the head of a 5 car coal train on a short section of remaining track