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The introduction of the MX3000 Series by Oslo Sporvier, the operator of the Metro (“T-Bane”) and the rest of the pubblic transit network within Oslo, in the early ‘2000s was in answer to several necessities the network was facing at the time, namely and primarily the replacement of ageing and unreliable rolling stock, the former being the T1000 Series built between 1966 and 1976 as the first trains for the Oslo Metro and the latter being the T2000 Series dual-mode trains built in 1995 to allow trough-services between the Holmenkollen Line powered by overhead wires (the current western section of Line 1) and the rest of the third-rail powered subway network, with two other issues being the necessity to lenghten most trains and increase frequencies due to rising passenger numbers, and to provide enough rolling stock to operate services over to-be-opened new sections of the network – especially over the then under-construction Ring Line.
Since the service pattern rearrangment of April 2003, the Oslo Metro ran five services named as “Lines” 1 trough to 5, with Line 1 providing service over the Lambertser Line in the east and over to the Holmenkollen Line, rising up to Frognerseteren station, Line 2 serving the Furuset Line and the Røa Line, Line 3 connecting the Songsvann and Østensjø Lines, Line 4 connecting the Kolsås Line and the Lambertser Line and Line 5 serving the Grorud Line and the Songsvann Line, before being diverted over the newly-opened first section of the Ring Line, to Storo, in 2005. All five lines run trough the Common Tunnel under Oslo’s city center, with all services running between the east and west sides of the city. Of the five lines, Lines 2, 3 and 5 were completely to “full metro standard” (third rail powered, long platforms and no grade crossings), as the Songsvann Line (serving Lines 3 and 5) had been rebuilt in 1993, followed by the Røa Line in 1995 (serving Line 2), and thus could use the older T1000 Series trains of the “eastern” metro network. The Holmenkollen Line (Line 1) and the Kolsås Line (Line 4) instead had not been upgraded – retaining the overhead wire power, level crossing and short platform of their past as suburban light railways, and thus had to be operated with the available dual-mode rolling stock – the T2000 Series exclusively on Line 1, and the T1300 Series on both Lines 1 and 4.
The future of the latter two lines, specifically their western sections (Holmenkollen Line and Kolsås Line) was still up in the air at the time, with Oslo city evaluing an eventual “downgrade” to light rail lines, wich would be eventually connected and integrated to the rest of Oslo’s tramway network. For the other “full metro” lines, it was by then clear that the old T1000 Series trains, the mainstay of the network built starting from 1966 and nearing 40 years of age, were by all means life expired, with Oslo city, togheter with Oslo Sporvier, eyeing their replacement.
To this end, part of the funding was to be granted as part of the so-called”Oslo Package II”, a financial package for the improvement of the transport system in Oslo city and the surrounding Akershus county, first proposed in 1996 and approved by Oslo’s city council, Akershus county council and the Norwegian Parliment in 2001, wich among other things, included a substantial fare hike, and most importantly, a toll increase on the toll roads surrounding Oslo (wich had been built as part of the similar 1986 “Oslo Package I”), with funding to be destined to various improvements to the pubblic transport system, chiefly with the introduction of new rolling stock – with the Oslo Metro being the perfect candidate.
As such, in 2003 a tender for thirty-three 3-car sets (99 cars, about 2/3 of the T1000 Series fleet) was put out by Oslo City, and was won by Siemens over five other competing firms. The finalized initial order, worth 1,6 billion Norwegian Kroner (224 million euro in 2025 value) was approved by Oslo Sporvier’s board on the 28th of June 2003, with notice being passed to Siemens right away.
For Sporvier’s order, Siemens proposed a design based on it’s “Mo.Mo.” (“Modular Metro”) platform, and more specifically, closely derived by the “Type-V” trains for the Vienna U-Bahn, twenty-five (plus one prototype) 6-car sets of wich had been delivered to Vienna up to 2002 (and eventually, a total of 62 trains would be delivered up to 2017). From the Type-Vs, Oslo’s new subway trains would inherit most of the “architecture” and technical design (rather directly aided by the fact that both the Oslo and Vienna’s subways share many german-derived standards) and would be formed as three-car walk-trough sets, with two powered cab cars sandwitching an umpowered trailer, for a total official capacity of 493 passengers per 3-car set. In terms of traction, Oslo’s new trains would obviously use Siemens’ equipment, specifically IGBT-VVVF inverters, controlled by the SIBAS-32 system, and Siemens-made traction motors. The external design was instead authored by the Porsche Design Studio, wich also designed the livery – a white background with light grey doors and black lines and cream and grey interiors with yellow handrails.
Built at Siemens’ Vienna Plant (the former SGP -Simmering-Graz-Pauker- factory, wich had been acquired by Siemens in 1989), alongside Vienna’s Type-V trains. Some extra design care had to be ensured so that the new trains could properly cope with Oslo’s freezing and snowy winters, especially considering that only a relatively small portion of the network is underground – to this end, the first two completed prototypes were tested within the “Climate Chamber” at the Arsenal testing complex in Vienna’s northern outskirts.
With testing complete, the first two prototype sets were delivered to Oslo Sporvier in October 2005, around the same time as Oslo City council approved the contractual option for a further purchase of 30 sets to completely replace the T1000, T2000 and T1300 Serieses, this having come contextually with the decision of scrapping the “downgrading” of the Holmenkollen and Kolsås Lines to light rail, with the city council (pressured by the pubblic, and especially the residents along the two lines) opting instead to convert to “metro standard” the two lines (albeit with the exception of level crossing removal – extremely difficult and expensive to perform on the Kolsås Line and outright impossible on the Holmenkollen Line). Full production of the new trains, now classified as the “MX3000 Series” began in April 2006 following successful testing of the prototypes, and the first full-production trains began to be delivered to Oslo exactly one year later in April 2007.
As a side note, testing of the MX3000 Series didn’t go exactly smooth, or wasn’t exactly painless, as it was soon found out that Oslo Sporvier had made an error in it’s technical specifications package, meaning that the trains’ electrical equipment drew slightly more power than what the substations were capable of, requiring some to be upgraded to higher power outputs. Another major issue was found in the braking system, wich could develop the tendency to lock the wheels and effectively let the train slide on slippery downwards descents, causing some incidents, among wich the most spectacular being one southbound train on the Songsvann Line sliding the whole way between Blinern and Majorstuen, about 1,3 Km. However, all these issues were more or less quickly solved (braking in slippery conditions would however always remain a slight hiccup for these trains) and the trains quickly became relatively reliable and trouble-free, especially if compared to the nightmare that the T2000 Series trains were.
With the Kolsås Line upgrade to “metro standard” approved, Arkershus County opted to order an additional five 3-car sets by itself, in order to lenghten the trains operating on the line, part of wich goes beyond Oslo City’s borders and into Arkershus County. January 2008 saw Oslo City place an order for fifteen additional sets, intended to lenghten trains serving the Ring Line from three to six cars and especially to double the frequencies from 15 minutes to 7-and-a-half minutes on services on the “eastern” part of the network – these additional services terminating at Stortinget Station in the common tunnel, using the balloon loop there to turn around (said loop had been built in the 1980s to turn around subway trains when the station was the interchange between the eastern metro network and the much less frequent western suburban light railway network). In total, Arkershus’ five trains would cost 240 million NOK, and Oslo’s fifteen 657 million NOK (28,5 million € and 77 million € in current values respectively). In the same year, the approval for the upgrade to metro standard of the Holmenkollen Line was finalized as well.
By then, the MX3000 Series fleet counted eighty-three 3-car sets, or 249 cars, enough to finally replace all the remaining older trains as planned. The first to be retired were the T1000 Series sets, wich made their final revenue trip on the 19th of July 2009, being followed within the year by the six T2000 Series sets allocated to Line 1 (Holmenkollen Line & Lamberster Line) services, officially retired after barely 16 years of unreliable service. The T1300 Series trains instead held out for a little longer still, with the remaining sets being reallocated to Line 1 to bridge the gap between the retirement of the T2000s and the start of “metro standard” services with the MX3000s – this came on the 22nd of April 2010, (after the Holmenkollen Line’s closure for reconstruction on the 14th March) with the T1300 Series sets making their final runs as well, ending their 30-year long career and the “red painted” trains on the Oslo Metro – from now on, the white MX3000 Series would be the only type of train in service on Oslo Metro’s network. The Holmenkollen Line would re-open later that year, after being retrofitted with third rails and a new signalling system, on the 6th of December 2010, with MX3000 Series trains providing service over it.
At around the same time, Oslo City made a fourth, and final, order of MX3000 Series trains – 32 three-car sets to lenghten all trains on all lines (except Line 1, due to the limited platform lenght on the Holmenkollen Line) from three to six cars – until then, services over the Kolsås Line and the Ring Line (Lines 4, 5 and 6*) were formed of three-car trains, with only Lines 2 and 5 being run with six-car trains. The final MX3000 Series set would be delivered to Oslo in 2012, bringing the fleet’s total up to 115 three-car sets – a total of 345 cars, one-third more than the previous combined fleet of T1000s, T1300s and T2000s.
As of today, with little change having happened in the meantime, the MX3000 Series trains are still the mainstay (and the only type of train in service) of the Oslo Metro, being used interchangeably thruought all current five lines resulting from the 2016 network rearrangment (following the opening of the Løren Line connector), with three-car trains being exclusive to Line 1 (Holmenkollen Line & Lamberseter Line) and six-car trains (formed as two coupled 3-car sets) in use on all other lines.
The MX3000 Series is however not destined to be “alone” for much longer – in May 2024 Oslo Sporvier awarded a tender for twenty 3-car trains to the Spanish CAF – dubbed as the “M4000 Series”, these will be ordered to provide service over the first entirely new Oslo subway line since the 1970s – the Fornebu Line, wich will serve a new development over the site of the former Oslo-Fornebu Airport (closed in 1998 and replaced by the current Oslo Gardermoen Airport). The contract also provides for purchase options up to 90 M4000 Series 3-car sets, but no replacement of the MX3000 Series is envisioned – to the contrary, the whole MX3000 Series fleet is slated to undergo a major refurbishment program (a sizeable part of the fleet is now approching 20 years of age, after all) wich will include among other things fitting of the necessary signalling equipment to allow for CBTC operation thruought the network (in replacement of the 1960s vintage pulse-code 4-aspect ATC system still in use), something sorely to increase frequencies at the outer end of the lines, due to the signalling bottleneck within the capacity-constrainted “Common Tunnel”, trough wich all five Oslo Metro lines run trough.
*Network arrangment between 2012 and 2016, following the opening of the full Ring Line: Line 1 – Holmenkollen Line & Lamberseter Line, Line 2 – Furuset Line & Røa Line – Line 3 – Østensjø Line & Songsvann Line, Line 4 – Lambertseter Line to Storo via the west side of the Ring Line, Line 5 – Grorud to Storo via the west side of the Ring Line, Line 6 – Kolsås Line to Storo via the east side of the Ring Line. All lines running trough the Common Tunnel between Majorstuen and Jernbanetorget.