Tag: Sorsele

Inlandsbanan 7: Vilhelmina Norra to the Edge of the Arctic Circle

The latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. We are still travelling north on Inlandsbanan and this post takes us to the arctic circle.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next installment in this series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. In this post we are back on the move, heading north along Inlandsbanan.

THE JOURNEY

Very soon after leaving Vilhelmina Norra behind us we made a brief stop at Storuman.

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After Storuman there was again a period of taking pictures through the window of a moving train.

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Shortly after I had taken the picture above we arrived at Sorsele, which is significant as…

THE STATION WHERE INLANDSBANAN TRAINS MEET

Yes, it is at an otherwise insignificant dot on the map called Sorsele that the northbound Ostersund-Galiivare service overlaps with the southbound Gallivare-Ostersund service. Sorsele is also home to the Inlandsbanan Museum, although I chose not to go inside. Thus I have many photographs of this location that is so important in the workings of Inlandsbanan…

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My first shot of the two Inlandsbanan trains together at the platform

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A wonderful signboard, one of many here.

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The external view of the Inlandsbanan museum.

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A disused platform.
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The guard about to indicate the departure of the southbound service.
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Where personal meets professional – as someone who images auction items and has an interest in railwayana I particularly wanted to get a close-up of the Inlandsbanan cap badge.
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Outside cooking – probably a rare pleasure in this part of the world!

After a brief move we including the lake below we arrived at Slagnas

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After leaving Slagnas there was a reasonably long period of forward travel…

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We then had a stop for long enough to stretch our legs at…

ARVIDSJAUR

I was able to take a few pictures here before we moved on.

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Moving forward again, I was still taking pictures through the train window…

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I reckon this must be the lower terminal of a cable car route.

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What looks like a black raindrop in the picture above is actually a mark on the window that got into more than one of my photos! It was very soon after this picture was taken that we arrived at…

THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

This was not the first occasion I had been into the arctic – on my only previous visit to Nordic lands in 1994 I had gone by train from Helsinki to Narvik in Norway, with a brief bus ride from Haparanda to Boden in the middle,, and after a night in Narvik had caught a bus to Tromso before then travelling by boat to the most northerly town in mainland Europe, Hammerfest. However in those days I had no camera, and also the point at which we reached the arctic circle was not announced. Here are the shots i took from inside the train before I knew that there would actually be a stop:

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I end this post with pictures taken out in the open at the arctic circle:

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The train at the arctic circle.

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A fellow passenger was kind enough to take the picture from which I extracted this image of myself standing in front of the arctic circle sign.