Talk:2024 Finneidfjord train derailment

Name of page vs List of rail accidents

• Comment: Please consider renaming this page to 2024 train derailment at Finneidfjord to make it fit into list of train accidents, where year always comes in front
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  This can be dealt with, when the article is accepted. Nthep (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

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Somebody took care of the renaming of the article, which is no longer a draft! Takk/Thanks! :-) 82.173.160.29 (talk) 04:02, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

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Paywalls

Yes, you should generally add archived versions to paywalled sites. In fact, there's a specific parameter for this (at least in the visual editor, not sure on source) called "URL access level". This allows you to state whether something requires registration, subscription or is free (though it's only really useful if it's paywalled). CommissarDoggo^Talk? 20:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

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Languages

Anarâškielâ/Inari Sami language

Don't ask me why Sami people 500km away are interested in this train accident in Norway, but since they took the trouble of writing an article in anarâškielâ/Inari Sami language, this article should link to theirs, I think. Can somebody please help and connect the Wiki language links?

The German language link is pointing to a chapter in the main article about the Nordland railway line, a piece of text where the references need some cleaning up, because somebody seems to have missed the fact that Bane NOR kept updating their press statement under the same weblink. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 03:59, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

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German language

German Wikipedia user Mef.ellingen has created a draft article about the 2024 Finneidfjord train derailment, but he or she has called it after Bjerka, which is wrong, as the crash site is much closer to Finneidfjord than to Bjerka.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Mef.ellingen/Baustelle_Eisenbahnunfall_von_Bjerka

As of now, the German Wikidata weblink is pointing to a section of the Wikipedia article about the Nordland railway line, not to the independent article that is now a draft on Mef.ellingen's personal userspace in German Wikipedia.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Nordlandsbanen#Problematische_Prim%C3%A4rquelle_Bane_NOR

I have pointed out that the quality of today's article is below Wikipedia's standards, because all references to press releases published by Bane NOR have been lost, "thanks" to constant updating with the same URL/web address. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 13:02, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

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Bangla(desh) language

Much to my surprise, Hasan Muntaseer (from Bangladesh?) took the trouble of translating this article. Why? When I run the Asian script through Lingva Translate (mirror of Google Translate) important data, like numbers of passengers, victims and years, comes out totally wrong. Is there somebody from Bangladesh reading this page? I doubt it, but I'd wish I could correct those numbers, or get a confirmation that the numbers are correct in Bangla language. Is that language not the same as Bengali language? If not, that might be the explanation for translation errors. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 13:45, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it is Bengali language that we speak in Bangladesh and we always love the trouble to translate articles that tickle our interests. I have checked the figures and those are fine. Also, Google Translate shows the correct figures even after the translation. Maybe you can have a try using the Google Translate. — Meghmollar2017 (UTC) — 07:14, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

French language

I have started to translate this article into French, but soon after completing the introduction text, I found out I cannot start a new article in French Wikipédia and I need to register an account to publish a translation. So I left my text as it is now under this chapter, hoping somebody will pick up on this work:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_du_Nordland#D%C3%A9railement_de_train_%C3%A0_Finneidfjord,_en_octobre_2024

I will also copy my French text here, so anyone who would be interested in translating articles into French, can finish what I started. I tried to find the right discussion page, to propose this translation task, but that attempt was lost in the jungle that Wikipedia behind the main articles is for me. The title with ' and = needs some adaption.

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Dérailement de train à Finneidfjord, en octobre 2024

{{ébauche}}

reste à traduire de la version originelle en Anglais ou Norvégien

Le dérailement de train à Finneidfjord, en octobre 2024, était un accident ferroviaire en Norvège, passé le 24 octobre 2024, sur la Ligne_du_Nordland, le chemin de fer entre Trondheim et Bodø, en Norvège. L’accident s’est produit suite à un éboulement, lorsque le train a frappé un rocher sur les rails entre Bjerka et Finneidfjord. Le conducteur du train n’a pas survécu l’accident ; Quatre passagers ont été blessées. Le train transportait 46 passagers, plus 3 membres du personnel, ajoutant à un total de 49 âmes à bord.

Comme résultat de l’accident, la locomotive et deux wagons se sont déraillés; La locomotive a terminé sa course avec le nez sur la route en dessous, la Route_européenne_6, les wagons basculés sur une pente assez raide. Suite à cet accident, la police a du fermer l’E6 et la ligne ferroviaire.

Ce chemin de fer et la route étant les seuls axes de transport terrestre en Norvège à cet hauteur, la Norvège est restée coupée en deux, jusqu’au moment qu’on a pu au moins rouvrir la route. La route E6 a été fermé pour tout traffic entre 24 octobre 2024 et 5 novembre 2025, sauf une ouverture temporaire lié aux intempéries qui avaient fermé la route de détour en Suède. L’opération de sauvetage des véhicules ferroviaires accidentés a été achevé le 5 novembre 2024, la route E6 a été rouvert le lendemain. La Ligne de Nordland a été rouverte le 30 novembre 2024, après une longue opération de securisation du terrain, plein de rochers susceptibles à un éboulement.

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AP, wrong number of passengers and citations in introduction

Of course I do respect CommissarDoggo for the work we have done together so far, not only on this article, but we seem to disagree about citations/references in the introduction paragraph of Wikipedia articles. Or is it that confusion about the number of passengers onboard the derailed train seems irrelevant to CommissarDoggo? If CommissarDoggo insists on skipping the citation/reference to Associated Press from the introduction paragraph, we could create a separate paragraph to fully explain how this confusion came to be (please see text below), but I would consider that overdone and I see no wrong in citing AP in the introduction text, with some hidden text only visible to those who mouse over the reference, rather than a top-heavy full blown explanation that fully exposes AP’s flaws in covering all news world wide. I find it hard to blame AP for their flaw; This is how journalism works and we at Wikipedia should be smart enough to deal with it, when trying to find the truth. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 16:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

There's no outright ban or anything of any sort on using citations in the lead, it's more just that they're unnecessary in the lead section unless something is particularly likely to be challenged and requires citing. The lead section is aimed at being a summation of the main body of the article, as such using citations in the lead when something is already in the main body and is unlikely to be challenged tends to be redundant. CommissarDoggo^Talk? 16:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

So far so good, CommissarDoggo. We are living in times when the truth is under threat and lots of people are ready to yell fake news! to just about anything, which is very annoying. The only weapon we have is to be as transparent as we can be, I guess. Now suppose you had to choose between the current solution I chose, with Associated Press's mistake on the number of passengers hidden in the remark with the citation/reference, only visible to those who mouse over it and/or read all the footnotes, or a full blown explanation, like the text I have prepared below, granting you a clean introduction paragraph, but at the price of making the article a bit top-heavy on a rather marginal issue that some people however might want to abuse, then which option would you prefer? 82.173.160.29 (talk) 16:58, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Pointing out the fact that the AP made a mistake is unnecessary, noted within a citation or otherwise. It contributes nothing to the article, as it's incredibly common for preliminary information to be wrong; look at the early history of any article on a major incident, for example, the 2024 Magdeburg car attack. As new information comes out, old citations are replaced with more useful citations.

I would also prefer a citation style that is easier to edit; all of the citations currently are basic citations, they are not the automated sort that you're able to easily edit in the visual editor. I plan to fix this at some point, though certainly not this evening.

As an aside, you don't need notes inside citations, that's what explanatory footnotes are for. CommissarDoggo^Talk? 17:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Only just got reminded about this, there is a citation generator in source mode as well. I haven't fiddled around with it much, but it'll make a lot of these basic citations a lot cleaner. CommissarDoggo^Talk? 18:53, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

PS: CommissarDoggo was pointing at this page, I would assume:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Citations

but I see no strict ban on references in an introduction paragraph.

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Foreign media confused about number of passengers

Associated Press wrongly reported that the derailed train was carrying 55 passengers. This false information was copied by a vast array of other foreign media, outside Norway. This confusion about the correct number of victims seems easy to explain, taking into account 4 circumstances:

• 1) It has indeed taken a few hours to confirm the real number of train passengers;
• 2) AP’s reporter was in Copenhagen, in Denmark, 1170km away from where the accident happened;
• 3) AP is an American press agency, that may have lost focus on Norway, a country far away from their perspective, because they were in the middle of an election campaign for presidential elections in the United States;
• 4) AP has a reliable reputation and English is a language far more understood worldwide than Norwegian.

Local newspaper Ranablad, national news paper VG and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK have followed the news around the derailed train at Finneidfjord with daily reports for as long as the road below (E6) was closed and continued to report once or twice a week as long as the Nordland railway line was closed, making them a more reliable source of news than a news agency that lost focus and failed to follow up.

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Train crash at Finneidfjord - Copy of talk page from Nordland Line

I quote what I wrote on the user page of Norwegian Wikipedia user Ranværing. Takk means thank you and venlig hilsen are friendly greetings at the end of my message. I can read Norwegian, which was a great help while doing research.

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Takk, Ranværing!

Your draft article is a good job. I hope you can get it published, even though I was sceptical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:The_train_accident_between_Bjerka_and_Finneidfjord_in_2024

Are you aware of this list of train accidents?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2020%E2%80%93present)#2024

I would suggest to rename your article into 2024 train derailment at Finneidfjord, just to better fit into the existing convention for naming train accidents. I had the same issue with 2023 Stenungsund landslide when I translated the title from Swedish.

Also, please note that this train accident has claimed 2 lives, if you count the Norwegian car driver who died in Sweden, after crashing into the back of a truck, on the detour route for European route E6. You can find that in my text.

med venlig hilsen ~2024-12724 (diskusjon) 14. nov. 2024 kl. 05:18 (CET) (2024-9280)

Norwegian Wikipedia is masking IP addresses, but that was me. My hopes for finishing this draft are on Ranværing and maybe some other Wikipedia users. I have left you tons of references below. Archived versions to prevent link rot were added later in the train crash section of the article about the E6 road.

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Train crash at Finneidfjord - Explanation/Discussion

When I started to describe the accident in which a train crashed into a fallen rock and fell on the European_route_E6 below, this was just meant to serve as an example as to how vulnerable Norway's main arterial road is to unexpected road closures and how long detours can be up north.

I did not intend to describe this train accident in so much detail, but I got carried away, thinking somebody might want to find the latest information about this train crash on Wikipedia. Both the road and railroad were closed and Norway was cut in two, without many transport options left.

My intention was to boil this chapter down to a much shorter form, focusing on E6, but only after E6 has reopened. Between 24th of October and 6th of November I have updated almost every day, eagerly waiting for reopening of E6. I don't think I will have time to reuse my text for a more railway focused article any time soon.

Before all my work is lost, I decided to publish a copy on this talk pa == Languages ==ge. It could be the start of a Wikipedia article about this train crash, in English. There is already a Norwegian Wikipedia article about the train wreck on E6 near Finneidfjord.

https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togulykken_mellom_Bjerka_og_Finneidfjord_i_2024

I have also rewritten an earlier version of my text, focusing more on the railway part of this train crash and it's published here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordland_Line#Accidents

I did not feel like starting a new Wikipedia article about a train accident in Norway however, because it seems mostly only relevant inside Norway, as no foreign news media have reported about it, as far as I know. Furthermore, I have some bad experiences with Wikipedia, so I felt discouraged, but others might want to try.

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We should have a separate article common for the train accident and the E6 road blocking and the causes. At least if we want to have this much detail. Or delete much information. There is too much info in the E6 and Nordland Line articles. On Norwegian Wikipedia there is a separate article. 82.173.160.29 has written a lot and should make a new article. User:BIL 18:40, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

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Thank you, BIL, for taking time to answer. My text as it stands now, is more focused on car and truck traffic on E6, than on train traffic on Nordlandsbanen, so my text needs some editing and filtering, if you want to use it for an article on Wikipedia. Do you want to invest time for this? Any volunteers around?

Can you defend such article about a train accident in Norway against allegations that this accident is not notable enough outside Norway to make it into the English-language Wikipedia? Have you noticed that securing the train tracks against rock fall may have not been done as well as BaneNOR was claiming?

I found an article pointing out some shortfall in BaneNOR's approach to security; I think it was written by NRK, but I have too many TABs open now, so I cannot find it very fast. You can guess that more news would follow, about who can be held responsible for this train accident in Finneidfjord.

What might count in defense for publishing an article is climate change: in stead of freezing once, when winter comes, the mountains will now freeze far more often, with temperatures shifting above and below zero degrees Celsius. This accelerates the process of crumbling the rocks and causes more rockfall.

What I really don't like, is the lack of information in English. My opinion is that an article for the English-language Wikipedia should not be swamped with sources in Norwegian to such an extend that one can only verify the references if one is good at reading Norwegian. I'm no fan of machine translations!

The fact that I refuse to register an account with Wikipedia seems to make people suspicious about my intentions. It even got so bad that I was falsely accused of sock puppetry and banned from Wikipedia for 1 month in summer, so please excuse me, when I say that somebody else should publish the article. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 19:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

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To make sure to get a reaction, I decided to write a message to Ranværing, because this user has written most of the article about the train crash on the Norwegian Wikipedia and he has started this draft article. First I quote my own message, then I quote the answer I got from Ranværing:

Togulykken mellom Bjerka og Finneidfjord i 2024 - Artikkel på Engelsk?

Unnskyld meg, jeg skriver og snakker ikke veldig bra Norsk - Kom gjerne og se denne diskusjonssiden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nordland_Line eller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:European_route_E6#Train_wreck_at_Finneidfjord_-_in_too_much_detail? Din hjelp er velkommen

Hello Ranværing!

After looking at your userprofile, I hope you can forgive me for writing to you in English. I could have written in Dutch, but I'm sure you will understand English better. ;-)

My Norwegian is limited to reading. I understand about 80 to 90% of what I read in Norwegian, without a dictionary. I found the train accident at www.wegenforum.nl => Internationaal => Europa => Noorwegen.

So, there I went and wrote a new chapter to he article about European route E6. I am at a crossroads now, about to delete more than half of what I wrote, but I hate to do that. "Kill your darlings" is not my hobby. :-/

Since you have written most of the Norwegian Wikipedia-article about the train accident at Finneidfjord, I am really curious to read your opinion about translating the article into English.

You are therefore invited to visit this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nordland_Line and tell me if and why the train accident at Finneidfjord should have an article in English.

Since I have had my fair share of problems on Wikipedia, I don't feel like investing much more time. I therefore refuse to register an account and write under my IP-number, but in good faith.

med venlig hilsen, ~2024-9280 (diskusjon) 6. nov. 2024 kl. 16:21 (CET)

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Hello. The reason why I wrote the article about the train accidence, is that this is local stuff. I live not far away from the incidence.

And I thought that this was of local interest. I see that someone has written an article in Enare Saami - a language in northern Finland. But none have written about it in Finnish or Swedish. Maybe I write a short stub in english and translate the Norwegian I have written. Mvh Ranværing (diskusjon) 7. nov. 2024 kl. 13:21 (CEST)

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There we are, just as Ranværing, who lives in Rana, has written: This train crash in Norway is local stuff, so I have no confidence that any attempt at publishing an article in English about this train accident would survive any sort of scrutiny about the importance of this train accident to the rest of the world. One needs to come up with a relevant reason why this train accident is notable. For now, I just don't want to waste my time on that, despite the kind encouragement I read in the comment written by BIL. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 16:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

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User Ranværing, who wrote 90% of this draft article about Draft:The_train_accident_between_Bjerka_and_Finneidfjord_in_2024, despite my less encouraging, skeptical, attitude, seems to be battling the backlash of a computer crash. That's what (s)he wrote on his/her Norwegian user page. I left him/her a note about computers. I hope Ranværing will get back to Wikipedia soon, because after all the effort (s)he made, this draft article has become rather good and should be published! 82.173.160.29 (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

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Sure, I see one question coming: Why is a train crash in Norway important enough for the rest of the world, to have it's own article on Wikipedia in English? At first, I was rather sceptical, but lately I was thinking this over and two aspects seemed particularly interesting to me:

One part of the story is about how climate change is speeding up rockfall; When winters are no longer long periods of stable temperatures far below zero degrees Celsius, but rather constant chains of freezing, thawing up, refreezing again, then a few drops of water that seep into a crack in a rock see their chances of breaking that rock multiplied by the rapidly changing weather conditions.

Next part of the story is: Norway is a country long and narrow, struggling to provide transport to people in Northern Norway, but this accident is different, because both the railway and road systems were blocked and Norway was cut in two pieces for more than a week (road) and even around 7 weeks (railway), all because of rockfall. Please don't tell the Russians how easy it would be to paralyze the Norwegian transport system with some fallen rocks! Jokes set apart: this vulnerability of the Norwegian transport system is bad news in times of geopolitical haphazardness. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 21:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

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Answer here, please

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Please keep your contributions to discussion above this line; Below is body text that could be used for new article on Wikipedia, about train crash at Finneidfjord (also check talk page behind European route E6

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Train wreck on E6 near Finneidfjord (draft for new Wikipedia article?)

Main article: Nordland_Line § Accidents

On 24 October 2024, around 14h15 (2h15 PM) a train on the Nordlandsbanen railway line crashed into a rock that had fallen on the tracks. The train derailed, sliding down an embankment, towards the road below, which is the E6. Train driver Rolf Henry Ankersen was killed in this accident. Four passengers had to go to hospital. The rest of just under 50 passengers escaped with minor bruises and were evacuated by bus. The locomotive's front end, some trees and smaller rocks ended up on the northbound lane of the E6, between Bjerka and Finneidfjord. Police have closed both Nordland Line and E6 until further notice, to investigate the cause of the accident, evaluate risks of further rockslides and create free space to salvage the derailed train cars. There were also some fears that the locomotive and one or more train cars could slide further down the embankment, so it was deemed unsafe to reopen the E6.

Once again, Norway's main road is closed and Norway is cut in two. One detour, using FV17, involves a ferry ship crossing between Levang and Nesna, where waiting times are very long, as the ferry ship does not have enough capacity to absorb the volume of traffic that would normally drive on E6. The other option for a detour runs along FV73 in Norway and through Sweden, following AC1116 and European route E12. Both detours cost lots of extra fuel and driving time. A local couple started to use their fishing boat to transport people from the village over the fjord, past the train wreck. Eventually the local council took over this ferry service. Bane NOR announced on Sunday 27 October 2024 that they had to interrupt their attempts to clear the train wreck because the mountain slope was still moving. An earlier announcement about reopening E6 turned out to be too optimistic, when Statens Vegvesen announced on 28 October 2024 that E6 would remain closed until at least Friday, 1 November 2024.

Bad weather, which triggered red alerts south of Trondheim, has aggravated the landslide risk and delayed the removal of the crashed locomotive at Finneidfjord. An orange alert was issued locally, with a warning not to travel if not necessary. During this episode of bad weather both detours failed on 29 October 2024, when the ferry service between Nesna and Levang was interrupted for several hours and the detour through Sweden was temporarily blocked by a truck that needed to be salvaged. E12 got covered in deep snow and long traffic jams started to form at the Swedish-Norwegian border. The E12 detour road was closed again on Thursday the 31st of October 2024, after a car with 3 Norwegians crashed into the back of a stopped truck, on Blå Vägen (E12), between Bredviken and Kåtaviken, in Sweden. One of them died in hospital a few days later, as a result of his injuries. When the ferry between Nesna and Levang resumed it's service, they were sailing with only 1 ship, since the second ferry ship had technical issues. All that BaneNOR had managed to do by Wednesday, 30 October 2024 was clearing the fallen rock from the train track and towing three train cars, that had not gone down the embankment, back to Bjerka railway station. Postal service Posten announced on Wednesday 30 October 2024 that letters and packages were delayed, due to many closed railways and roads.

After a new evaluation of the situation on Thursday 31 October 2024, BaneNOR announced that the large cranes necessary to lift the locomotive away from the crash site had not yet been set up, because the moving mountain slope had to be secured first. Statens Vegvesen is hoping to reopen E6 by Monday 4 November 2024. BaneNOR stated in their updated press announcement that safe working conditions for their salvage crew is their first priority and they actually cannot promise any day for reopening Nordlandsbanen and E6. It was not possible to replace trains with busses, in order to offer an alternative to passengers on the Nordland train line, because busses would have to use same E6 that remained closed at Finneidfjord. Statens Vegvesen was strongly urging all car and truck traffic to take the detour through Sweden, until Friday 1st of November 2024. Customs authorities have set up temporary exceptions of customs rules for truck traffic making a Norway-Sweden-Norway transit.

On Friday 1 November 2024, Statens Vegvesen announced that E6 between Bjerka and Finneidfjord would be temporarily opened for guided traffic from Friday afternoon 15h (3h PM) until Sunday morning 7h. BaneNOR announced in their updated press release that the securing of the mountain slope was finished, so allowing traffic to drive past the crash site on E6 under guidance should be safe, but the wind was picking up, making it unsafe to operate large cranes, so the lifting of the crashed locomotive would not start before Sunday 3 November at 7h in the morning, when E6 was closed again. BaneNOR then used Sunday to prepare the cranes needed for lifting the crashed locomotive, but in yet another change of plan, Statens Vegvesen announced that E6 would again be temporarily opened for guided traffic from Sunday evening the 3rd of November 2024 21h (9h PM), until Tuesday morning, the 5th of November 2024, 7h. Statens Vegvesen has decided to keep E6 open, because traffic conditions on the detour road through Sweden were so bad, that taking the detour through Sweden is no longer recommended. BaneNOR rewrote their earlier press statement once again and announced that the lifting of the crashed locomotive was postponed till Tuesday, because changing weather conditions made it unsafe to start the lifting operation on Sunday evening. BaneNOR expected that E6 could be reopened no earlier than on Thursday the 7th of November 2024 in the evening, hoping the salvaging of the remaining parts of the crashed train would be finished by then. By 17h49 on Sunday the 3rd of November 2024 BaneNOR announced that weather conditions had allowed them to lift one of the two train cars from the embankment above the E6, which took about 30 minutes. The second train car was lifted away on Monday and the locomotive was salvaged on Tuesday. With the train wreck gone, E6 will now be reopened on Wednesday morning, 6th of November 2024, but BaneNOR announced in their last update of their press release that they expect to be doing repair works until the end of week 46. E6 can be temporarily closed for up till half an hour, whenever repair works on the railway might cause risk of rockfall. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2024 (UTC)