Gråkallbanen AS
Encyclopedia
Veolia Transport Bane AS, trading, and formerly known as, Gråkallbanen, is a Norwegian
company that operates the remaining part of the Trondheim Tramway
, Norway
. It operates six trams on the Gråkall Line, that connects the city centre to parts of the suburb of Byåsen
, and the recreational area at Lian. It has 800,000 annual passengers, and operates as Line 1. The trams operate each 15 minutes during the day, and each 30 minutes in the evenings and during the weekends.
The company took over the last remaining part of the tramway in 1990, after the former operator Trondheim Trafikkselskap
had closed the Gråkall and Lade Line in 1988. The company took over the trams and the track, and claimed it could operate without municipal subsidies. In 2005, Gråkallbanen was bought by Veolia Transport Norway
, and the company has launched aggressive plans to take over the bus transport in Trondheim.
in Trondheim decided to close the Trondheim Tramway
and replace it with diesel
bus
es to save money. This was despite that the council just four years earlier had spent more than NOK
100 million on a new depot and 11 new tram cars.
The bus service in Byåsen was complicated. A temporary feeding bus was established on Gamle Oslovei and Vådanveien. Breidablikk received its own line, while another served along Uglaveien from Munkvoll to Herlofsonløypa. After the tramway was reasphalted, the bus continued to along the old right-of-way to Lian. Bygrensen was not served by any buses.
Henry H. Tørhaug, a former tram user who lived at Bygrensen, took initiative to start Friends of the Gråkall Line in October 1988. It attracted many local people in Byåsen who were dissatisfied with the bus service, along with many tram enthusiasts, and politicians from Bylista. This resulted in Gråkallbanen AS being founded. It proposed a more rational operation of the line, limited to the remaining right-of-way from St. Olavs Gate
to Lian. The company offered a back door to several politicians, since it claimed it could operate the tram without municipal subsidies.
On 22 June 1989, the city council voted to re-open the line from St. Olavs Gate to Lian. After the mater was re-considered on 31 August, it passed with 42 against 40 votes. The company was free to receive subsidies from the county and the state. The new company started negotiating with TT about the details of the take-over. In particular, the number of trams to be used was a difficult matter. Gråkallbanen wanted all eleven, while TT only would give up six. In the end the politicians voted to give seven to the new company. Since the tram lines were presumed to be kept for the museum line, Gråkallbanen was not charged the extra NOK 135,000 for maintaining the tracks on the roads. The city also accepted to take economic responsibility for the heritage trams. During the discussions, TT demanded that the municipality pay NOK 23.8 million for the trams, depots and other material, but this was rejected by the city. The city also chose to give NOK 5 million to Gråkallbanen as a one-time payment, equal to the subsidies they were giving TT to operate the new bus routes in Byåsen. The negotiated agreement was passed with 51 against 34 votes in the city council.
After all the agreements were in place, TT announced on 30 December 1989 that it had found a new buyer for the trams. An agreement had been made with the Copenhagen
-based Unimex Engineering, who would sell the eleven trams to the Cairo Tramway. On 2 January 1990, TT sent a letter to Gråkallbanen giving them the option to purchase the trams for the same price as the Egyptions, at an estimated NOK 17–20 million. However, Gråkallbanen pointed out to the politicians that is was possible to purchase used articulated trams for DEM 20,000 from the Stuttgart Stadtbahn
. The company took the press with it to Stuttgart to negotiate the agreement, and the following Adresseavisen
presented the cities new trams to the people. However, by the time the delegation had returned, they were informed that the deal had been annulled. Adresseavisen tried to locate Unimex in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be a company that had never sold a tram. At a press conference in Trondheim, the director of TT blamed Arbeider-Avisa
's journalists for the deal not going through. When asked about the matter, representatives from the tramway company in Kairo said that the deal did not go through because the trams did not fit.
The final decision to restart the trams was made by the city council on 29 March 1990. In the mean time, Bylista had changed their political support for the 1989 mayor election. Instead of supporting the Labour
candidate Per Berge, they instead chose to support Marvin Wiseth
from the Conservative Party
, who took over as mayor 1 January 1990. The reason was that the Labour Party was not willing to give a clear support to the tramway operation. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, was more than willing to support any suggestions that involved privatization. The non-socialist parties succeeded at keeping the mayor until 2003 after this.
On 9 June the overhead wires were powered up, and from 3 July there were test-runs with some of the historic trams. Tracks and substructure were replaced between Nyveibakken and Bergsligate. A ballast tamper
was rented from Germany, and the asphalt from Kyvannet to Herlofsonløypa was removed. Part of the work was done by volunteers. The night before 6 July, seven of the trams (no. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9 and 11) were taken out of the depot at Lademoen
, and moved by truck to Kongens Gate, where they were put onto the Gråkall Line. They were then hauled by the working machine to Munkvoll. At noon the next day the first tram took a trial run in the city streets. They kept the TT colors, but were given the GB logo. At the same time they were renumbered (90–99, with holes). The official opening was on 18 August 1990, with a parade of historic trams leading the way.
The traffic the first full year was 900,000 passengers annually, which is 20% higher than with the buses. Passenger numbers decreased until 1997, when they started rising somewhat. That year a bus corresponds with the tram at Breidablikk, and offers a correspondence with Marienborg
, St. Olavs Hospital and Øya
. During the 2000s, the ridership has stabilized at about 800,000.
(at the time named Connex). Approved by the general assembly on 11 April 2005, Veolia promised additional capital of NOK 10.7 million to the company. It only paid a few million for the shares. In 2005, the municipality made a new ten-year agreement concerning the operation of the tramway. The ownership of the nine trams were transferred to Gråkallbanen, so they no longer needed to pay comprehensive insurance that was at NOK 250,000.
After the Veolia take-over, Gråkallbanen launched several plans to become a larger company in Trondheim. In 2007, it announced that it would apply to take over all bus routes in the city, that at the time were operated by Team Trafikk
(the successor of Trondheim Trafikkselskap). The company has launched several ambitious suggestions for routes to supplement Team Trafikk, but has yet to receive permission to operate any of them. The same year, the Socialist Left Party
announced that it wanted to renationalize the company, but Veolia has said it has no intentions to sell the company back to the city.
and onwards to Pirterminalen
. This expansion would cost about NOK 80 million and would be paid by the city.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
company that operates the remaining part of the Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway located in Trondheim, Norway consists presently of one 8.8 km tramway line, Gråkallbanen, from St. Olav's Gate in the city centre through Byåsen to Lian Station in Bymarka...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. It operates six trams on the Gråkall Line, that connects the city centre to parts of the suburb of Byåsen
Byåsen
Byåsen is a district in the city of Trondheim, Norway, situated to the west of the city centre. This is mainly a residential area, with 32 136 residents as of January 1, 2003. The name Byåsen can be translated into "City Hill", which describes its elevated position, overlooking the rest of...
, and the recreational area at Lian. It has 800,000 annual passengers, and operates as Line 1. The trams operate each 15 minutes during the day, and each 30 minutes in the evenings and during the weekends.
The company took over the last remaining part of the tramway in 1990, after the former operator Trondheim Trafikkselskap
Trondheim Trafikkselskap
Trondheim Trafikkselskap or TT was the city public transport company for Trondheim, Norway between 1974 and 2001. It operated both the city buses, and the Trondheim Tramway until 1988. The company was owned by the city council....
had closed the Gråkall and Lade Line in 1988. The company took over the trams and the track, and claimed it could operate without municipal subsidies. In 2005, Gråkallbanen was bought by Veolia Transport Norway
Veolia Transport Norway
Veolia Transport Norway is the Norwegian subsidiary of Veolia Transport, part of Veolia Corporation and operates through its subsidiaries buses, ferries and trams in the counties of Akershus, Finnmark, Nordland, Rogaland and Sør-Trøndelag, primarily through the purchase of former monopolists. The...
, and the company has launched aggressive plans to take over the bus transport in Trondheim.
Background
In 1988 the city councilCity council
A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
in Trondheim decided to close the Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway
Trondheim Tramway located in Trondheim, Norway consists presently of one 8.8 km tramway line, Gråkallbanen, from St. Olav's Gate in the city centre through Byåsen to Lian Station in Bymarka...
and replace it with diesel
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es to save money. This was despite that the council just four years earlier had spent more than NOK
Norwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...
100 million on a new depot and 11 new tram cars.
The bus service in Byåsen was complicated. A temporary feeding bus was established on Gamle Oslovei and Vådanveien. Breidablikk received its own line, while another served along Uglaveien from Munkvoll to Herlofsonløypa. After the tramway was reasphalted, the bus continued to along the old right-of-way to Lian. Bygrensen was not served by any buses.
Initiative
St. Olavs Gate (station)
St. Olavs Gate or St. Olav's Street is the terminus of Gråkallbanen, the remains of the Trondheim Tramway in Trondheim, Norway. The station serves the city center and is located two blocks from the bus station at Munkegata. It is located on St...
to Lian. The company offered a back door to several politicians, since it claimed it could operate the tram without municipal subsidies.
On 22 June 1989, the city council voted to re-open the line from St. Olavs Gate to Lian. After the mater was re-considered on 31 August, it passed with 42 against 40 votes. The company was free to receive subsidies from the county and the state. The new company started negotiating with TT about the details of the take-over. In particular, the number of trams to be used was a difficult matter. Gråkallbanen wanted all eleven, while TT only would give up six. In the end the politicians voted to give seven to the new company. Since the tram lines were presumed to be kept for the museum line, Gråkallbanen was not charged the extra NOK 135,000 for maintaining the tracks on the roads. The city also accepted to take economic responsibility for the heritage trams. During the discussions, TT demanded that the municipality pay NOK 23.8 million for the trams, depots and other material, but this was rejected by the city. The city also chose to give NOK 5 million to Gråkallbanen as a one-time payment, equal to the subsidies they were giving TT to operate the new bus routes in Byåsen. The negotiated agreement was passed with 51 against 34 votes in the city council.
After all the agreements were in place, TT announced on 30 December 1989 that it had found a new buyer for the trams. An agreement had been made with the Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
-based Unimex Engineering, who would sell the eleven trams to the Cairo Tramway. On 2 January 1990, TT sent a letter to Gråkallbanen giving them the option to purchase the trams for the same price as the Egyptions, at an estimated NOK 17–20 million. However, Gråkallbanen pointed out to the politicians that is was possible to purchase used articulated trams for DEM 20,000 from the Stuttgart Stadtbahn
Stuttgart Stadtbahn
The Stuttgart Stadtbahn is a light rail system in Stuttgart, Germany. It is operated by the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG , which also operates the bus systems in that city...
. The company took the press with it to Stuttgart to negotiate the agreement, and the following Adresseavisen
Adresseavisen
Adresseavisen is a regional newspaper published daily, except Sundays, in Trondheim, Norway. It is an independent, conservative newspaper with a daily circulation of approximately 85,000. It is also informally known as Adressa. The newspaper covers the areas of Trøndelag and Nordmøre.Adresseavisen...
presented the cities new trams to the people. However, by the time the delegation had returned, they were informed that the deal had been annulled. Adresseavisen tried to locate Unimex in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be a company that had never sold a tram. At a press conference in Trondheim, the director of TT blamed Arbeider-Avisa
Arbeider-Avisa
Arbeider-Avisa was a daily newspaper published in Trondheim, Norway, started in 1924 and defunct in 1996...
's journalists for the deal not going through. When asked about the matter, representatives from the tramway company in Kairo said that the deal did not go through because the trams did not fit.
Reopening
Norwegian Labour Party
The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is the senior partner in the current Norwegian government as part of the Red-Green Coalition, and its leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is the current Prime Minister of Norway....
candidate Per Berge, they instead chose to support Marvin Wiseth
Marvin Wiseth
Marvin Wiseth is a Norwegian politician from the Conservative Party.He is known as the former mayor of Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway, from 1990 to 1998. He had been a member of the city council since 1976. During his period as mayor the city hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski...
from the Conservative Party
Conservative Party of Norway
The Conservative Party is a Norwegian political party. The current leader is Erna Solberg. The party was since the 1920s consistently the second largest party in Norway, but has been surpassed by the growth of the Progress Party in the late 1990s and 2000s...
, who took over as mayor 1 January 1990. The reason was that the Labour Party was not willing to give a clear support to the tramway operation. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, was more than willing to support any suggestions that involved privatization. The non-socialist parties succeeded at keeping the mayor until 2003 after this.
On 9 June the overhead wires were powered up, and from 3 July there were test-runs with some of the historic trams. Tracks and substructure were replaced between Nyveibakken and Bergsligate. A ballast tamper
Ballast tamper
A ballast tamper or tamping machine is a machine used to pack the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks more durable. Prior to the introduction of mechanical tampers, this task was done by manual labour with the help of beaters...
was rented from Germany, and the asphalt from Kyvannet to Herlofsonløypa was removed. Part of the work was done by volunteers. The night before 6 July, seven of the trams (no. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9 and 11) were taken out of the depot at Lademoen
Voldsminde (station)
Voldsminde was a tram stop on the Lade Line of the Trondheim Tramway. It was operational between 1936 and 1988 and was the site of a tram depot since 1913...
, and moved by truck to Kongens Gate, where they were put onto the Gråkall Line. They were then hauled by the working machine to Munkvoll. At noon the next day the first tram took a trial run in the city streets. They kept the TT colors, but were given the GB logo. At the same time they were renumbered (90–99, with holes). The official opening was on 18 August 1990, with a parade of historic trams leading the way.
The traffic the first full year was 900,000 passengers annually, which is 20% higher than with the buses. Passenger numbers decreased until 1997, when they started rising somewhat. That year a bus corresponds with the tram at Breidablikk, and offers a correspondence with Marienborg
Marienborg Station
Marienborg is a railway station located at Marienborg in Trondheim, Norway. The station is located on the Dovre Line at the point where the Stavne–Leangen Line branches off from the Dovre Line. The station has two platforms, one on each of the railway lines, the one track electrified and the other...
, St. Olavs Hospital and Øya
Øya
Øya is a location in Trondheim, Norway that is a peninsula in the river Nidelva, with Elgeseter to the east. The area is dominated by housing, but also features St. Olavs University Hospital as well as parts of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Sør-Trøndelag University College....
. During the 2000s, the ridership has stabilized at about 800,000.
Takeover
In 2005, a 67% stake of the company was taken over by Veolia Transport NorwayVeolia Transport Norway
Veolia Transport Norway is the Norwegian subsidiary of Veolia Transport, part of Veolia Corporation and operates through its subsidiaries buses, ferries and trams in the counties of Akershus, Finnmark, Nordland, Rogaland and Sør-Trøndelag, primarily through the purchase of former monopolists. The...
(at the time named Connex). Approved by the general assembly on 11 April 2005, Veolia promised additional capital of NOK 10.7 million to the company. It only paid a few million for the shares. In 2005, the municipality made a new ten-year agreement concerning the operation of the tramway. The ownership of the nine trams were transferred to Gråkallbanen, so they no longer needed to pay comprehensive insurance that was at NOK 250,000.
After the Veolia take-over, Gråkallbanen launched several plans to become a larger company in Trondheim. In 2007, it announced that it would apply to take over all bus routes in the city, that at the time were operated by Team Trafikk
Team Trafikk
Team Trafikk is the bus company in Trondheim, Norway and is owned by Nettbuss. The company has 225 buses, 600 employees, a revenue of NOK 270 million and a daily ridership of ca 70,000 passengers. The company receives subsidies from the City of Trondheim for their operations...
(the successor of Trondheim Trafikkselskap). The company has launched several ambitious suggestions for routes to supplement Team Trafikk, but has yet to receive permission to operate any of them. The same year, the Socialist Left Party
Socialist Left Party (Norway)
The Socialist Left Party or SV, is a Norwegian left-wing political party. At one point one of the smallest parties in Parliament, it became the fourth-largest political party in Norway for the first time in the 2001 parliamentary election, and has been so ever since...
announced that it wanted to renationalize the company, but Veolia has said it has no intentions to sell the company back to the city.
Future plans
Gråkallbanen has plans expanding the present line from St. Olav's Gate to either Prinsens Gate (one block away) or to Trondheim Central StationTrondheim Central Station
Trondheim Central Station or Trondheim S is the main railway station serving the city of Trondheim, Norway. Located at Brattøra in the north part of the city center, it is the terminus of the Dovre Line, running southwards, and the Nordland Line, which runs north...
and onwards to Pirterminalen
Pirterminalen
The Pier Terminal is a ferry terminal and bus station located at Brattøra in the centre of Trondheim, Norway. Fosen Trafikklag operates fast ferries across the fjord to Vanvikan, as well as Kystekspressen to Kristiansund and Sula. Team Trafikk serves the terminal with several routes by city bus...
. This expansion would cost about NOK 80 million and would be paid by the city.