NSB El 13

NSB El 13 is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...

which was used by

Norwegian State Railways Vygruppen, branded as Vy, is a government-owned railway company which operates most passenger train services and many bus services in Norway. The company is owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport. Its sub-brands include Vy Buss coach se ...

(NSB) for both passenger and freight trains. The locomotive is a heavier and upgraded version of the

NSB El 11 The NSB El 11 was an electric locomotive which was operated for both passenger and freight trains by NSB. It was the third type of Norwegian electric locomotive with bogies, after the NSB El 7 and NSB El 9. They were manufactured by Norsk Elekt ...

which was popular among its crew but unsuitable for journeys in heavy snow on lines such as the

Bergen Line The Bergen Line or the Bergen Railway ( no, Bergensbanen or nn, Bergensbana), is a long scenic standard gauge railway line between Bergen and Hønefoss, Norway. The name is often applied for the entire route from Bergen via Drammen to Oslo, ...

. Like the El 11, the El 13s were produced by Thune. The engines are very similar to the El 11, the main visual differences are that the El 13 is half a metre longer and has three, rather than four, windows at each end of the locomotive. The first of the 37 engines were built in 1957, the last in 1966. They were numbered 13 2121 to 13 2144 and 13 2151 to 13 2163.

The engines were withdrawn from service during the 1990s as several passenger trains were replaced with

multiple unit A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train contr ...

s and the

NSB El 18 NSB El 18 is a class of 22 electric locomotives built by Adtranz and Swiss Locomotive & Machine Works (SLM) for the Norwegian State Railways (NSB). The class is a modification of the Swiss Federal Railways Re 460 locomotive and built at Adt ...

took over the remaining locomotive hauled trains. As of 2005, There are still seven El 13s in service on the

Ofoten Line The Ofoten Line ( no, Ofotbanen) is a rail transport, railway line in Narvik, Norway. It runs from the Port of Narvik to Riksgränsen on the Norway–Sweden border, where the line continues as the Malmbanan, Ore Line via Kiruna and Gällivare to ...

. one of them El 13.2142 was donated from CargoNet to the Norwegian Railway Museum in 2003 and so far 2142 is the only El 13 in preservation so far. {{NSB stock Thune locomotives El 13 Electric locomotives of Norway Bo-Bo locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1957 El 13 Standard gauge locomotives of Norway