A freight train derailed at Oslo Central Station on Thursday night, blocking five tracks and causing widespread delays across Norway’s rail network.
The incident occurred in slow speed just before the passenger platform at 10:45 p.m., according to Bane Nor, as reported by NRK. Two carriages overturned, blocking tracks 1 through 5 and compounding travel disruptions that had already gripped the eastern region.
No injuries were reported in the derailment. The accident happened shortly after a separate ground fault at the station had temporarily brought all train traffic to a complete standstill.
Earlier in the evening, commuters faced severe crowding and confusion as electrical issues paralyzed operations. Hallgeir Hjeltnes described standing on the platform at Nationaltheatret at 9:40 p.m., telling VG that an announcement warned of a ground fault at Oslo S with an unknown repair time while roughly 100 people waited.
Øystein Stavdal Paulsen, press spokesperson for Bane Nor, confirmed the ground fault at 9:50 p.m., stating that all trains were stationary while crews worked on repairs. Traffic briefly resumed around 10:05 p.m. before the freight derailment struck the station infrastructure.
Pendler Øystein Knudsen boarded a train toward Lilleström at 9:15 p.m. and remained stuck for half an hour. Passengers received announcements that trains were cancelled in favor of replacement buses, though the arrival times of those buses remained unclear to stranded travelers, Knudsen told VG.
Police initially received word from the train dispatch center that Bane Nor would handle the incident internally. However, after viewing images from the scene, officers deployed a patrol to investigate the wreckage.
“We saw that it is more comprehensive than we got the impression of in the notification,” said Alexander Østerhaug, operations leader in the Oslo Police District, according to NRK. Officers said that containers had toppled and multiple tracks remained blocked.
Police concluded their on-scene documentation and interviews around 3:00 a.m. on Friday, opening a formal case to determine the cause of the accident. Statens havarikommisjon, the Accident Investigation Board Norway, joined investigators at the site overnight.
Bane Nor warned that recovery efforts will take many hours. Crews must plan the lifting of the derailed cars back onto the rails before engineers can inspect the damaged infrastructure for necessary repairs.
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