An Electrified Historic Railway
There are many historic railways in Europe, but very few are electrified. In Sweden there has been a long tradition of producing electrically powered tractor units, from ASEA to Adtranz. Many electrically powered trains dating from 1910 and on are not possible to show in use to the general public as they don’t comply with regulations for mainline traffic. Putting some of these to use here would help turn the Dellen Line into an electrified historic railway: at the same time electrification would not impede the use of diesel or even steam powered engines, which would mean that the Dellen Line could also be used to demonstrate the full span of railway development, from early steam engines to today's modern highspeed trains.

The track itself, with its accompanying buildings and period technical infrastructure, is also worth preserving as a good example of a typical mid-19^th century Swedish railway. For this reason the National Heritage Board, supported by The Technical Museum, The Railway Museum and The Royal Institute of Technology, has previously determined the line to be of national historical interest and suggested that it should be listed.

Historical Background
During the 1850s it was planned to build a canal in Hälsingland in order to link the Dellen lakes with the sea. The idea was to make it possible to ship iron ore from the coast to the Lakes’ many foundries whilst carrying pigiron in the other direction. The plan was to have the canal follow the natural water flow, reaching the sea at Iggesund, a town situated about 5 km south of Hudiksvall. This strategic new line of transport would thus have had the effect of sidelining the more important town of Hudiksvall further up the coast, and in order to avoid this the merchants and decisionmakers in Hudiksvall decided to build a railway. The line was to start in Hudiksvall and the plan was to intercept the canal at Forsa. And this is indeed what happened. The canal from the Dellen lakes never did reach the sea, instead linking up with the railway near Forsa church. The new transport route was put into use in 1860 and the railway could at that time boast of being the world’s northernmost line.

By 1880 the building of the Swedish northern mainline had reached Ljusdal and a few years later Parliament decided that a state branch line should be built between Ljusdal and Hudiksvall. The original narrow gauge private line was taken over (subject to compensation) and widened to standard gauge, and by 1888 the new railway line could be inaugurated in its entirety.

A Rescue Mission
In the early 1980s the Dellen Line was threatened with closure, along with many other branch lines with little traffic flow. In 1985 SJ (Swedish State Railways) closed the line to passenger trains, but it was clear that it was only a matter of time before goods traffic was to go the same way. It was at this time that a group of private individuals formed the association known as "The Friends of the Dellen Line", whose aim was not just to preserve the line but also to transform it into an economically viable railway with modern passenger and goods traffic.

We borrowed money from the bank and bought a pair of older electrified carriages that were put to use for tourist and charter traffic. In 1986 the line was finally closed to goods traffic and the following year it was closed to all traffic, even ours. But as we wanted to celebrate the line’s coming centenary in 1988 we took out more loans in order to carry out necessary repair work during the spring and were thereby able to reopen the line for use from the summer of that year.

In 1989 the Dellen Line was once again closed to all traffic, this time by the newly formed Banverket (the track owners), and a few years later it was closed down for good. But the Friends of the Dellen Line continued. A 1988 decision by a parliamentary transport committee had conferred new and improved possibilities on lines such as the Dellen Line and we were now working on a new idea called the "Sundsvall Commuter", a plan for a regional line to run from Ljusdal via Hudiksvall to Sundsvall.

Volunteer Weeks
We were at this time becoming more fully aware of the Dellen Line’s value from an historic cultural point of view, something which we thought could be further enhanced if the line were to be developed into an electrified historic railway. Gävleborg’s County Museum carried out a study of the line which confirmed its value and they also made a suggestion as to how it could once again be put into use.

We are now working flat out with this vision in mind, and over the next few years our plan is to renovate and put into use a section of the track with Delsbo as the central hub. Since 2001 we are organizing yearly work camps for volonteers together with IAL (Internationella Arbetslag), the Swedish branch of SCI (Service Civil International).