On 13 December 2020, Sunday, the new Ulriken tunnel opened on the Bergen line.  The 7.8 kilometer long tunnel runs between Arna and Fløen.

The Minister of Transport Knut Arild Hareide described the new railway tunnel as a milestone in the modernization of the railway in the Bergen area. The opening of the 7.8 kilometer long tunnel, which has taken six years to build, is a major step on the road to the double track between Arna and Bergen. When the double track is completed, the number of departures for passengers on the route can be doubled to four per hour, and freight and passenger traffic will have much greater flexibility than on the current single track, declares Bane Nor.

Construction began in August 2014 with the blasting of the first 800 meters of the tunnel. The blasted part has a cross section up to a full 300 m². Here there are several tracks and two 150 meter long transition tunnels to the original tunnel. In this long "mountain hall", the trains will eventually be able to change tracks between old and new tunnels.

The next stage - seven kilometers - was bored by the tunnel boring machine Ulrikke, which was the first of its kind on the railway in this country. It took the machine almost two years to bore through the rock from Arna before it came out on the Bergen side in August 2017.

After the main tunnel was completed, a new round of blasting work began to create (total 16) smaller tunnels between the new and the old tunnel in Ulriken. One at every 500 meters, these transverse tunnels will be used as an escape system for the two parallel tunnels, which will be among Europe's safest when the old tunnel is rehabilitated and reconnected to train traffic.

Also on the railway technical side, Bane NOR has taken new paths in this tunnel project. For the first time on the railway in Norway, the main part of the track in the new Ulriken tunnel was cast - so-called fixed track - instead of laying the track on crushed stone and sleepers as is usually done. The main advantages of such a track are less maintenance and longer service life.

Further construction Now the next stage awaits, which is to rebuild the other half of Arna station, rehabilitate the old tunnel and complete the double track to Bergen station and the freight terminal at Nygårdstangen. Only when all this is ready, according to the plan in 2024, will there be full effect of the new tunnel - and 4 trains per hour between Arna and Bergen.

Because of the COVID19 pandemic, there was no usual opening ceremony. 

https://www.banenor.no/Nyheter/Nyhetsarkiv/2020/ny-tunnel-gjennom-ulriken-apnet/