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| THE HISTORY
OF THE ARTIC RAILWAY (Ofotbanen)  The arctic railway was build by the turn of the century to ship iron ore from the mine in Kiruna to the ice free harbor of Narvik. When the railway was officially opened in 1903, it was the northernmost railway in the world. The construction of the railway was a dangerous project, and many navvies lost their lives during the five years of hard labour under extremely hash conditions. Using mainly manual tools like crowbar, sledgehammer, mallet, drill, pickaxe and shovel beside horse and wagon the navvies worked their way throug tough granite.In periods, up to 5000 men worked on the railway.  Katterat, before 1951 named Hundalen, became an important station along the Arctic Railway, as a meeting place and waterpoint for the steam engines. When the railway was electrified in 1923, as one of the first in the world, one of the important transformation stations was located to Katterat. Many families now lived at Katterat. They had their own school, shop, barn, crokett launch and rifle assosiation with shooting range. Katterat is today an unik collection of buildings from the early period of the railway. One of few left! One of the buildings, a former four familiy house is now Katterat Guest House. |
