Today is not only my birthday... 😉
On April 26, 1961, the locomotive "Granfos" left the factory at Ensjø in Oslo, heading for its new home at Granfos Brug in Lysaker, Bærum.
The construction of the locomotive began in 1960 at Levahn Mechanical Workshop, and everything from start to finish was carefully documented.
But no one knows much about its time at Granfos Brug... There are no traces of the locomotive from it left the factory until it was found in a scrap yard in the mid-1980s. A volunteer from UHB bought the locomotive with his own savings and brought it to Tertitten (UHB). The locomotive had to be converted to narrow gauge to be usable on the railway, and it was given a new coat of shiny blue paint! In 1987, Granfos was put into operation alongside Odda at UHB, and it ran there for many years, until the late 1990s. Then both locomotives were abandoned in a field, as the new "super machine," Bingsfos, had taken over, and they were no longer needed.
Eventually, there was plans of scrapping them, but luckily they were saved and instead sent to Lommedalsbanen in 2002. In 2008, Odda moved on to new adventures, first to Gruvo, Litlabø Mine Museum, and later in 2023 to Fosdalen mines in Steinkjær.
The railway's gauge was too narrow for Granfos to be used on Lommedalsbanen, and since he couldn't be converted to an even smaller gauge, he was left standing under a tarp in the forest, waiting for better days... Waiting... and waiting...
Until a autumn day in 2023, when a young girl named NN really wanted to meet her favorite locomotive. In the meantime, he had gained a new life in my children's books about UHB... and many children have grown fond of him through the stories and NN was one of them.
NN insisted on Olaf Wiegels lifting the tarp, and he didn't have the heart to say no. 😉
So, after 21 years, Granfos finally received a visit to his cab! From a little girl of 9 years, who felt a mix of awe and slight fear in the darkness inside, surrounded by cobwebs and dust.
This was documented by the Norwegian Railway Club, and photos of the event were published in the railway magazine "På sporet."
In 2024, I was out having a beer after a shift at the Norwegian Railway Museum, together with Vasco, who is responsible for the rolling stock there. He had probably gotten a taste of how convenient a diesel locomotive can be after borrowing Tinfos and Setskogen from us. Since Granfos has the right gauge for the track at Martodden, and he had seen the photos of NN in "På sporet," he started asking me about the condition of the locomotive. We agreed to do an inspection at the end of June.
At the end of June, we went down there, together with Tore, who also works at the railway museum. And we liked what we saw. A process was then started to bring Granfos to Hamar.
Some misunderstandings almost caused things to fall apart... and Lommedalsbanen thought we might not want it after all, so they considered stripping it for usable parts and scrapping the rest.
Fortunately, we prevented that, and on December 9, 2024, I traveled to Bærum to oversee the transport to Hamar.
Granfos arrived in Hamar in the afternoon and was welcomed by almost everyone at the museum. A warm welcome to his new home after being saved from scrap for the third time! Now, he will become part of the narrow gauge family at Martodden and work alongside Urskog on that small line. But first, he will go into the workshop to be restored!
So, happy birthday to a tough devil of a diesel locomotive! May he get many, many good years in Hamar!
