Private railways in Norway consist of industrial and public railways. Industrial railways were used to transport ore or other industrial products to ports, although they have, particularly to begin with, also operated passenger and cargo services. The other nine private railways have been public and operated as mixed passenger and freight services. Of these, four were later taken over by the Norwegian State Railways (NSB). Only five non-industrial railways were never nationalized, although all have been closed. There were the Nesttun–Os, Holmestrand–Vittingfoss, Lillesand–Flaksvand, Tønsberg–Eidsfoss and the Lier lines. No industrial railways remain in operation, although one former private railway, the Trunk Line, Norway's first railway, is still in use.

The division between private and publicly owned railways is related to operation rather than ownership. All non-industrial private railways received state grants for construction, while many of NSB's railways were at first organized as limited companies with private owners, although NSB was responsible for all operations and maintenance of the line and rolling stock. For both NSB-run and private, non-industrial railways, municipalities

Municipalities of Norway

Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...

 and counties

Counties of Norway

Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...

 were often the largest owners. Eventually, all the private, non-industrial railways started losing money, and unless they received subsidies, were forced to close. However, the state and municipalities often provided subsidies to keep them operational. The last private railway to close was the Lillesand–Flaksvand Line, in 1958.

List

The following is a list of the private railways in Norway. It includes the line, type (industrial or public), the owner at the time the railway was closed, the longest length of the line, the gauge, the date the line opened, was nationalized and was closed for passenger and cargo, if applicable. The list only contains industrial railways which at some point had regular passenger transport.

Line	Type	Owner	Length (km)	Length (mi)	Gauge	Opened	Nationalized	Closed (passengers)	Closed (cargo)
Dunderland	Industrial	Dunderland Iron Ore Company	22	13.7			—	—	—
Grimstad	Public	—	22.1	13.7
Holmestrand–Vittingfoss	Public	Vestfolds Privatbaner	24.4	15.2			—
Lier	Public	—	20.6	12.8			—
Lillesand–Flaksvand	Public	—	16.6	10.3			—
Nesttun–Os	Public	—	26.3	16.3			—
Rjukan	Industrial	Norsk Transport Norsk Transport Norsk Transport AS was a railway- and shipping company responsible for the transport of chemicals from Norsk Hydro Rjukan. A subsidiary of Norsk Hydro, the company was founded in 1907 and operated until 1991....	46	28.6			—
Solbergfoss	Industrial	Oslo Lysverker	7.9	4.9			—
Sulitjelma	Industrial	Elkem Elkem Elkem is one of Norway's largest industrial companies, and one of the world's leading suppliers of metals and materials. The company's main products are aluminium, energy and silicon as well as specialised products such as ferrosilicon to foundries, microsilica and carbon...	38.5	23.9			—
Thamshavn	Industrial	Salvesen & Thams Chr. Salvesen & Chr. Thams's Communications Aktieselskab Chr. Salvesen & Chr. Thams's Communications Aktieselskab, Salvesen & Thams, Comms. AS or S&T is a Norwegian company based at Løkken Verk in Meldal that was responsible for electricity production and railway operation for Løkken Mine operated by the Orkla Mining Company...	25.3	15.7			—
Tønsberg–Eidsfoss	Public	Vestfolds Privatbaner	48	29.8			—
Trunk	Public	—	67.8	42.1				—	—
Urskog–Høland	Public	—	56.8	35.3
Valdres	Public	—	108.6	67.5					—