One Rail Trip, Many Sides of Norway
Bruce Bawer
Bruce Bawer travel article on railway journey across Norwegian mountains from Oslo to Bergen; map; photos (L)
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I'M a sucker for trains. So after I moved to Oslo three years ago, it was only a matter of time before I took the trip my Norwegian friends kept telling me I had to take -- the roughly seven-hour railway journey across Norway's mountainous midriff to Bergen, on the North Sea coast.

Since I wanted to do this in style, I booked seats in the first-class ''salong.'' When my partner, Tor André, and I boarded the train on a gray, drizzly Friday morning last May, we found the accommodations very comfortable, with ample chairs, basketball-center legroom, large spotless windows and free coffee, tea and Norwegian newspapers. Since I planned to use my laptop, I was happy to find a conveniently placed electrical socket and, in a classic example of Scandinavian ingenuity in matters of practical design, a portable tabletop that attached easily to my chair.

There was just one problem: of the nine seats in the compartment, ours were among the three pairs that faced backward. (The three single seats, across the aisle, faced forward.) When we spoke to the conductor, he suggested that backward was better because the train goes so fast that if you're facing the direction you're going in, everything rushes at you and you can't really see it properly. But what about those like me, who get dizzy riding backward? He apologized amiably.

I resolved to make the best of it. And the weather was kind: by the time we reached the Oslo suburb Asker, the rain had stopped and the sun had burst through. For the first hour or so, to be sure, there wasn't much to see: Asker looked like a typical bedroom community; Drammen, which I'd been through many times, was a riverside industrial burg.

I took a walk. The train was crowded with chipper travelers, maps on their laps, conversing in half a dozen languages. Everything was clean, bright and functional. Though these first- and second-class areas weren't as roomy as the salong, I rather envied the passengers the convivial, lively company. One car even contained a children's play area -- a rope ladder, a big pipelike contraption to crawl through, a gym mat to jump onto. When I passed through, two elated toddlers were making use of them.

But soon I was back at my window. And fortunately so, for about two hours out of Oslo, after rolling through a hilly landscape of pine forest and farmland, we plunged into a tunnel and burst out of it at a point high above the lordly Hallingdal River. It was spectacular. The message was clear: the prosaic scenery was behind us; the show had begun.

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