TENDERING FOR REGIONAL SERVICES UNDERWAY

NORWAY

The Norwegian Government announced the start of a tendering process for the operation of passenger services in early 2016. The Norwegian Ministry of Transport plans to award two contracts in the summer of this year for the operation from December 2018 of a group of lines in the south of the country and another covering all services in northern Norway. These are currently all operated by national operator NSB with a mixture of modern Stadler Flirt EMUs plus older EMUs, DMUs and some loco-operated trains on the longer routes included in the tenders (such as Oslo to Trondheim and Oslo to Stavanger). For the non-electrified northern line from Trondheim to Bodo, NSB uses diesel locos for some services. Swedish national passenger operator SJ has announced it will be bidding for the contracts and has set up a new subsidiary in Norway called SJ Norge. SJ already operates cross-border services to Oslo from Stockholm.