Flam railway and hiking the Rallarvegen on your own

[gmadvm]

The ship shore excursion takes you from Flam up to Vatnahalsen on the train and then a hike about halfway down to Berekvam where you catch the train back to Flam. We are interested in taking the train independently and then hiking from Vatnahalsen down to Flam. The ship shore excursion says it is about a 6 mile hike and it looks like about 10.5 miles if you go all the way to Flam. Has anyone done this before?

 

I have read that there are some concerns with getting a seat on the train as the ship shore excursions have priority. We are in port from 10am-8pm, so I know this plan would depend on when we could get a train up to Vatnahalsen. Alternatively, we could sign up for the tour and I wonder if they would let us continue on down by ourselves instead of getting back on the train in Berekvam. The ship lists the tour as a 5 hour trip, so I'm guessing they take the 12:20 train at the latest in order to complete the trip and be back to the ship by 7. Might be worth the piece of mind to know that we have a seat on an early train. Anybody have any insight into this?

[msg_girl]

You can check on http://www.cruise-norway.no/Arrivals.aspx?ports=9&zone=9&start=30.06.12&end=30.06.12 to see if it is only you in port - at the moment it looks that way and the heading suggests that your ship means Flam's fully booked ie no other ship will dock or tender. If you search this forum you'll find there are options of puchasing tickets in advance but no reservations unless you book for a party of ten or more. I'm sure you'll be able to get on one of the first two trains provided you get to the ticket office early enough to avoid the queue. G.

[gmadvm]

I found the website where I can buy tickets online (nsb dot no )but I'm confused about what it gets us. I understand that there are no reserved seats, but if I buy 2 one way tickets for the 11am train (looks like you can buy them 2 months in advance) does that mean I get on the 11 am train but may not have a seat if it is crowded or does it mean that we don't get on that train if the ship excursions have bought a large block of tickets and we get bumped to a later train.

 

I guess what I'm asking, do they oversell these tickets or if you have tickets for a specific time, do you absolutely get a spot on this train, but you might not be sitting together, or sitting at all if it is standing room only. I don't care about the lack of assigned seats, just want to make sure that we get on the train that we bought tickets for and now I'm confused reading some of the threads about the long lines to pick up pre-bought tickets at the for sale window. Is that where the problems lie? The possibility of the train being sold out if you try to buy them that day and just getting your tickets in hand before the train leaves? Now I'm confusing myself.

 

Ideally, DH has a friend who lives in Oslo, so maybe she could buy us paper tickets and mail them to us so we have them in hand.