Just after Midsummer’s Eve in July, an extraordinary event took place in Lapland, high up inside the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden. It was exclusively reported in Heritage Railway issue 291 No. R 976, an 0-10-0 built by Nydqvist & Holm AB in 1909 and restored in 2006 but little used since then, was to return to the line it was designed and built for – to once again haul an iron ore train on the main line for the last time. The R Class were essential for working this steeply graded railway in Northern Sweden.
Starting at 11.55pm on July 2, the train ran through the day/night until nearly 9am – not as daft as it sounds, because at this latitude during the longest days of the year, the sun never sets.
The event was linked with the northern town of Kiruna’s midsummer festival which ran between June 30 and July 3. Midsummer is a huge celebration in Sweden, equal to Christmas.
Coincidently, it was also the 120th anniversary of the northern section of the iron ore line which runs around 300 miles between the ports of Lulea in Sweden on the Baltic and the ice-free North Sea port of Narvik in Norway. Narvik is the most northerly standard gauge station in the world.
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