Arendal Line
railway line

The Arendal Line (Norwegian: Arendalsbanen) is a 45-kilometer (28 mi) long railway line between Arendal and Simonstad in Norway. At Nelaug, 37 kilometers (23 mi) north of Arendal, the line intersects with the Sørland Line. The southern section is electrified and provides a feeder passenger service. The line originally ran 90 kilometers (56 mi) north from Arendal to Treungen and the lake Nisser, but the upper-most part has been removed. The line is owned by the Bane NOR and operated by Go-Ahead Norge using Class 69 trains.
Originally named the Arendal–Åmli Line, the first part of the line, from Arendal to Froland, opened on 23 November 1908. The line was extended to Åmli on 17 December 1910 and to Treungen on 14 December 1913, and was named the Arendal–Treungen Line. The line also had a branch, the Grimstad Line built 1907, from Rise to Grimstad. At this time this was the only railway at any of its stations, as the Sørland Line was not built in this region yet. Originally the line was 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) narrow gauge; in 1935, the Sørland Line was extended to Nelaug, and the section to Arendal rebuilt to standard gauge to allow the Sørland Line to have a temporary terminus in Arendal.
The public source identifies “Arendal Line” as railway line. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Arendal, Line and railway.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q195832. VIAF identifies the subject as 8038149296213280670002. Authority coordinates are 58.573, 8.742. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1910, 1913 and 1907.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arendal Line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.