Oppdal Station
Encyclopedia
Oppdal Station is a railway station located in downtown Oppdal
Oppdal
is a village and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Dovre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Oppdal. Other villages in the municipality include Lønset, Vognillan, Fagerhaug, and Holan...

 in the municipality of Oppdal
Oppdal
is a village and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Dovre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Oppdal. Other villages in the municipality include Lønset, Vognillan, Fagerhaug, and Holan...

 in Sør-Trøndelag
Sør-Trøndelag
- References :...

 county, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. It sits close to the European route E6
European route E6
European route E 6 is the designation for the main north-south road in Norway, and the west coast of Sweden, running from the southern tip of Sweden, at Trelleborg, into Norway and through almost all of the country north to Finnmark. The route ends close to the Norwegian border with Russia...

 highway, just northwest of the mountain Allmannberget. The village of Oppdal is dominated by mountain tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 and skiing
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....

 in winter.

The station is located on the Dovre Line, and it is served by four daily express trains going in each direction to Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 and Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

. It is also served by a few daily Trøndelag Commuter Rail to Trondheim. The station was opened in 1921 as part of the Dovre Line when it was extended from Dombås
Dombås
The village of lies in the Dovre municipality and serves as an administrative center in the upper Gudbrandsdal, Norway. It lies at an important junction of roads: south leading to the current capital of Norway, Oslo, west via Lesja leading to Åndalsnes on the sea and north to the old capital,...

 to Trondheim.

Hotel

When building the Dovre Line, Norsk Spisevognselskap
Norsk Spisevognselskap
Norsk Spisevognselskap A/S, often abbreviated NSS or shortened to Spisevognselskapet, was a Norwegian state enterprise which operated restaurant carriages on Norwegian trains and restaurants at train stations and railway hotels. The company was established in December 1918, and started a catering...

 planned to build a tourist hotel at one of the stations. When the station opened on 20 September 1921, Norsk Spisevognselskap started operations of a station restaurant in the station building
Station building
A station building, also known as a head house, is the main building of a passenger train station. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers.A station building is not to be confused with the station itself...

. The facilities were too small, but it would be too costly to expand the station building to make a larger restaurant. It was therefore decided to establish a combined restaurant and tourist hotel next to the station. Plans were made by Architect Gudmund Hoel
Gudmund Hoel
Gudmund Hoel was a Norwegian architect. He is regarded as the second-most influential railway architect in Norway, after Paul Due....

 and District Manager von Krogh and approved on 27 October 1922. he company purchased a 0.6 hectares (1.5 acre) lot next to the station. The restaurant was taken into use on 22 June 1923 and the hotel opened on 28 June 1924. It originally was 605 square metres (723.6 sq yd) and 60 60 beds. In the immediate vicinity there was built croquet
Croquet
Croquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...

 and tennis fields and a bobsled and curling
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called "rocks", across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a...

 course. The hotel cost 1.22 million Norwegian krone
Norwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

, of which the building itself cost NOK 0.88 million.
The arrival both of the railway and the hotel was instrumental in the tourism boom which would follow in Oppdal. Opdal turisthotell was a key, as it had an external and professional owner which operated both restaurants and hotels elsewhere. In 1923, a longer dispute between the hotel and the municipality started regarding the liquor license
Liquor license
-Alberta:In Alberta, liquor licences are issued by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission.-United Kingdom:Throughout the United Kingdom, the sale of alcohol is restricted—pubs, restaurants, shops and other premises must be licensed by the local authority. The individual responsible for the...

. Initially the request was dismissed because of defamatory statement made by the police commissioner. Spisevognselskapet took the issue to the courts, who judicially declared the statement is null and void. An application was denied by the municipal council ahead of the opening of the hotel in 1924, and again the following year. Eventually in 1925, a license was granted by the municipal council. This was repeated until 1929, when the license was again dismissed. To avoid additional losses, Spisevognselskapet agreed with NSB to have a dining car
Dining car
A dining car or restaurant carriage , also diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant....

 put onto the train between Oppdal and Trondheim, and to close the hotel after Easter, from 5 April 1929, and remain closed during the low season. However, the Parliament of Norway intervened and instructed the state-owned company to keep the hotel open. It was therefore re-opened from 25 June 1929. Locals were not allowed to purchase alcoholic beverages at the hotels in Oppdal. Therefore, some locals would bicycle to the nearest station, get on the train and get off at Oppdal. There they would get into the same queues as the tourists and purchase the alcoholic beverages.

After the war, the hotel was renovated, including all-new interior and furniture for the restaurant and saloons. In 1952, a ski lift
Ski lift
The term ski lift generally refers to any transport device that carries skiers up a hill. A ski lift may fall into one of the following three main classes:-Lift systems and networks:...

, largely owned by Spisevognselskapet, opened. In 1957, Architect Hugi Kohmann presented a model for three additions, two large two-story buildings and one eight-story. Although supported by the hotel management, the board of Spisevognselskapet were split, and in the end only one of the two-story extensions were built and completed in 1962. In 1973, Norsk Spisevognselskap sold the hotel. Another extension was launched in 1979, and completed in 1989. Ownership later passed to Johan Fr. Schønheyder.
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