There’s a reason rail travel has been having something of a renaissance across northern Europe. Trains here are punctual, comfortable, often cheaper than flying once you factor in airport faff, and considerably easier on the conscience. But the real argument for taking the train across the Nordics has nothing to do with carbon footprints or seat pitch. It’s the windows.
From Norway’s fjord country to Swedish Lapland and the snow-bound forests of Finland, the region has built some of the most spectacular railway journeys anywhere. These are routes that climb through mountain passes, skirt cliff edges, cross the Arctic Circle and deliver scenery that you’d struggle to take in any other way. You can’t, sadly, traverse the entire Nordic region by rail in one go. The Baltic Sea sits between Sweden and Finland, and a ferry crossing is required to bridge the two networks. Iceland, meanwhile, has no passenger rail at all. But what is connected is connected magnificently.
Below, five of the finest train journeys the region has to offer, from short scenic showpieces to overnight sleepers into the Arctic.
The Bergen Line, Norway
Oslo to Bergen is the obvious starting point, and with good reason. Over roughly seven hours, the Bergen Line covers around 308 miles and climbs to 1,237 metres at Finse, making it the highest mainline railway in northern Europe. The route crosses the Hardangervidda plateau, a vast, treeless expanse of lakes, lichen and snowfields that feels closer to the Arctic tundra than anything you’d associate with mainland Europe. In winter, the train becomes one long white-out broken only by the occasional red-painted hut.
The descent into Bergen brings the scenery back to scale: pine forests, waterfalls and finally the harbour itself, with its UNESCO-listed Bryggen wharf. Plenty of travellers break the journey at Myrdal to connect with the Flåm Railway (more on which shortly), or at Voss for hiking and summer paragliding.
Booking ahead pays off significantly: minipris fares can drop below £30 if you’re flexible. The line itself is a feat of late-Victorian engineering, blasted through gneiss rock between 1894 and 1909 by crews working with dynamite and hand tools, and the achievement still impresses more than a century later.
The Flåm Railway, Norway
If the Bergen Line is the long, slow argument for Nordic rail travel, the Flåm Railway is the elevator pitch. Just 20 kilometres long, the Flåmsbana takes around 50 minutes to descend from Myrdal to the village of Flåm on the Aurlandsfjord, dropping 866 metres on a gradient that makes it one of the steepest standard-gauge railways in the world.
What it lacks in length it makes up for in density of scenery. Twenty tunnels, hairpin bends carved into the mountainside, the Kjosfossen waterfall (where the train pauses for passengers to step out), and the gradual unfolding of the Aurlandsfjord below. The train itself is a handsome thing, all polished wood and deep green livery.
It’s not a secret, and in summer the carriages are full. The shoulder seasons, particularly late September and early October when the birch turns, reward the visit considerably. Most travellers do it as part of the Norway in a Nutshell route, combining it with the Bergen Line and a fjord cruise. Sceptics may find that hard to forgive, but the scenery does the convincing on its own.
The Inlandsbanan, Sweden
Sweden’s Inland Railway is the route that rewards patience. Running 1,300 kilometres from Kristinehamn in central Sweden to Gällivare deep inside the Arctic Circle, the Inlandsbanan covers ground that road and air both skip. The line operates only between June and August, and most travellers take the better part of three days to complete the Sweden rails route via overnight stops along the way.
What you get for your time is something quieter and stranger than the postcard fjords: dense pine forest, glacial rivers, herds of reindeer crossing the line, the Sami heartlands of Jokkmokk, and the UNESCO-listed Laponian area near journey’s end, which the track actually passes through. The train moves slowly enough that you can take the landscape in properly, and frequent stops let you stretch your legs at lakeside stations where the only sound is the wind. The midnight sun in June and July adds a peculiar element to the experience, with the train rolling north through landscapes that never properly darken. It’s not a journey for travellers in a hurry, but then nothing about the Inlandsbanan is.
The Iron Ore Line, Sweden To Norway
Built in the late 1800s to haul iron ore from the mines at Kiruna to the ice-free port of Narvik, the Malmbanan (and its Norwegian extension, the Ofotbanen) was an engineering feat of its era and remains one of the most spectacular railways in Europe. Travellers usually pick it up in Stockholm, riding overnight north on SJ’s sleeper service before the line crosses into Lapland and climbs through Abisko National Park.
Abisko itself is worth pausing for. The park sits inside a rain shadow that gives it some of the clearest skies in Scandinavia, making it one of the best places in the region to see the aurora borealis between September and March. The train then carries on west, crossing into Norway and descending dramatically toward the Ofotfjord, with the peaks of the Lofoten Islands visible in the distance on a clear day.
The full Stockholm-Narvik run is around 18 hours, often taken as an overnight. Many travellers split it, basing themselves at Abisko or Kiruna for hiking, dog sledding or aurora chasing before completing the descent to Narvik. The contrast between the boreal forest at the start and the Arctic fjord at the end is genuinely difficult to overstate.
The Santa Claus Express, Finland
Finland’s overnight sleeper from Helsinki to Rovaniemi is the rare train journey that has earned its branding. Officially the Santa Claus Express, run by VR, the service leaves Helsinki in the evening and arrives at the gateway to Lapland the following morning, covering roughly 800 kilometres while you sleep. The double-decker carriages are modern and quiet, with private cabins, en-suite options and a restaurant car.
It’s the arrival that does the work. Rovaniemi sits on the Arctic Circle, and in winter the journey delivers you into proper subarctic conditions: snow-laden pines, frozen rivers, husky farms, the chance of aurora overhead. The town itself has the Arktikum museum and the Santa Claus Village a short way out (the latter best taken in the spirit it’s offered, which is to say with children or a sense of humour).
The VR website handles tickets, timetables and onward connections through Lapland, and a quick look across the wider Finland trains network is worth doing before you book. Booking the cabin upgrade is worth the modest premium, particularly in winter when you’ll want to wake up to the view rather than a fluorescent corridor.
The Bottom Line
The Nordics make a strong case for putting away the boarding passes and sitting down with a window. None of these journeys are secrets, exactly, but each one delivers something genuinely difficult to find elsewhere: the slow reveal of a landscape that aviation skips entirely. Pick one as the spine of a longer trip, or string several together with a rail pass and a loose itinerary, and enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime trip far removed from the usual TikTok trail. Settle in, then; the trains, on the whole, will do the rest.
