The scandal that has plagued Norway’s State train and railway system has claimed a major victim with the head of Bane NOR resigning with immediate effect.
Gorm Frimannslund had been under fire for months, mostly because of huge budget overruns and delays on Bane NOR’s new high-speed Follobanen commuter line.
The Follobanen line between Oslo and Ski has finally begun running following 13 years of construction and then 10 more weeks of electrical trouble that shut it down less than a week after King Harald V declared it open.
The line is only 22 kilometres long but it ended up costing NOK36.8 billion ($A5.2 billion), with more millions offered contractors to speed up work on its specially-built tunnel in the hopes it could open in December.
It did, but had to close just eight days later because of serious electrical trouble that led to overheating and even set off a fire.
The project, agreed to before Mr Frimannslund (pictured) took over the top post at Bane NOR in 2016, was meant to expand commuter capacity and cut commuting time in half, if only by 11 minutes.
In the event, the Follobanen become the country’s most expensive transport project ever.
The Follobanen is just the latest scandal tied to Norway’s heavily bureaucratic and problem-plagued rail transport system.
In early February, the Aftenposten newspaper reported on a survey of Bane NOR personnel that revealed alarmingly low confidence in Bane NOR’s management.
Fully 88 per cent of Bane NOR’s roughly 3,400 employees responded, and only 11 per cent gave top management good scores (of four or more on a scale of one to five).
The average score was 3.2, markedly lower than those given in other areas.
Mr Frimannslund will be replaced by the head of the Operation and Maintenance Division, Henning Bråtebæk, in an acting capacity.
Oslo, 17 March 2023
