003 - Electric Locomotive No. 3 – “Edvaard Raavde”

Built: 1965

Class/serial no.: Valtikk/BZ447281E

Length: 19m

Weight: 85 tonnes

Power: 1250kW

Max speed: 145 kph No. 3 Locomotive, “Edvaard Raavde” - just one among many required to move a train of this magnitude - commemorates the renowned Noorskii writer. And like those others, she has a cab at either end, allowing the train to be pulled up the line in one direction or pushed down it in the other. At the moment, we have forward momentum – “pull up, pull up, pull up!” she seems to say. They are double-headed dugongs, these locomotives, their mournful brows peering out over heavy muzzles (picture your former 55-Class locomotives and you have the idea). A number of diesel units bring up the rear, turning the entire train into a vast pushmi-pullyu, a variety of mechanical palindromedary. And so that they may operate safely in both forward and reverse modes, the locomotives are equipped with navigational devices, placed either side of the powerful electro-mechanical motors that take up much of their internal space. Thus, as they roll past you, they are configured in the following sequence - radar-rotor-radar, radar-rotor-radar...

For centuries, our literary tradition was oral only, contained in a series of sagas. In the end, these sagas prove circular. Shahs rise and fall and rise again – Idi and Otto, Anna and Eve. We exchange one tenet for another. Civic. That is the word. Our enemies level our cities. We build them anew. Our pride is lost then found once more. Everything comes full circle…