The Dovre Line
Oslo to Trondheim

The Dovre Line departs from Oslo S, Norway's national rail hub, and runs north out of the capital's suburbs into farmland. Within the first hour the railway reaches the southern tip of Lake Mjøsa - Norway's largest lake - and stays close to its eastern shore for the better part of a hundred kilometres, through Hamar with its Viking-ship-shaped Olympic hall, the water widening and narrowing beside the train.

This opening stretch is easy, settled country: grain fields, timber farmhouses, the lake catching the light. It is the calm before the long climb, and a good argument for a window seat from the start.

At the head of Lake Mjøsa the train calls at Lillehammer, the town that hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics and still trades happily on that fortnight. The ski jumps stand on the hillside above the station, and the open-air Maihaugen museum - one of northern Europe's largest collections of historic timber buildings - is a short bus ride up the hill for anyone breaking the journey.

Beyond Lillehammer the character of the line changes. The lake is gone, and the railway enters Gudbrandsdalen - one of Norway's great farming valleys, long and deep, walled with pine forest and dotted with some of the country's oldest farms. The train climbs steadily for more than an hour, the river Lågen for company, the valley narrowing as the mountains gather.

Lake, then valley, then plateau: the Dovre Line ascends through Norway's landscapes in order, like chapters.

Near the top of Gudbrandsdalen, the train reaches Dombås - a small mountain town with an outsized place on the rail map. This is the junction where the Rauma Railway (Raumabanen) branches west, dropping down the Romsdal valley past the Kylling Bridge and beneath Trollveggen to the fjord at Åndalsnes. If you have ever seen a photograph of a Norwegian train dwarfed by a vertical rock wall, it was probably taken on that branch.

For through passengers, Dombås marks the shift from valley to mountain. The forest thins, the air sharpens, and the line begins its final climb toward the plateau. For itinerary-builders, it is the natural place to split the journey: Dovre Line to Dombås, Rauma Railway to the fjord, then back up to continue north. Connections are not frequent, so plan the timings before you travel.

North of Dombås the Dovre Line does the thing it is named for: it crosses the Dovrefjell. Near Hjerkinn the railway tops out at 1,024 metres on open, treeless upland - a landscape of stone, lichen and enormous sky. This is one of the last places in Europe with wild musk oxen; sightings from the train are a matter of luck, but the herds live on these slopes, and the peaks of Dovrefjell–Sunndalsfjella National Park, Snøhetta among them, stand along the western horizon.

The plateau crossing is why this journey deserves daylight. In summer the upland is green-gold and dotted with tarns; in winter it is a white expanse that makes the warm carriage feel like a privilege. Then the long descent begins - down through Oppdal, a ski and hiking town, as the line follows the Driva valley toward the coast, forest closing back in around the train.

The Dovre Line ends at Trondheim S, beside the Trondheimsfjord and a short walk across the water from the city centre. Founded in 997 as Nidaros, Trondheim was Norway's medieval capital and remains its third-largest city - compact and walkable, wrapped in a loop of the river Nidelva, with rows of timber warehouses on stilts and the great Nidaros Cathedral, the northernmost Gothic cathedral in Europe and Norway's coronation church.

Give it an evening at least. The old town bridge at dusk, the cathedral's west front, fresh fish at the market - Trondheim rewards the traveller who does not treat it as a terminus. For the ambitious, the rail line continues north from here toward Bodø and the Arctic Circle; for most, this is the satisfying end of Norway's classic mainline.