Track
Track 16
The Age of Steam! focuses on the years immediately before and after 1847 which saw the opening of the Copenhagen–Roskilde railway line and it is built around ODIN, a full-size and fully functional replica of Denmark’s first train engine. These days, we take the railway for granted, but people felt very differently during the first few years. The exhibition explores how the railway was initially received and how ODIN contributed to revolutionising the Danish transport system.
The central exhibit of the exhibition is ODIN, a fully functional replica of Denmark’s first train engine from 1846
Enjoy the many beautiful details on ODIN, for example the dome
Casting mould for dome
At selected events, ODIN runs on the Museum’s own railway section
Otto Busse was the first engineer at the Zealand Railway Company. This was his desk
3D-printed moulds for elbows for the feed check valve, which sits below the boiler and for bronze elbow, which sits below the water pump
The Roskilde Line, the first railway line in the kingdom, ran between Roskilde and the capital, and this new mode of transport became an overnight success. This 32-kilometre journey which used to take several hours was now reduced to 53 minutes, and suddenly many more people than ever before were able to travel to Roskilde or Copenhagen.
However, the line also assumed a different significance – a significance which was to prove crucial to the country’s future development. The line was also used to transport large quantities of goods and livestock.
ODIN and the introduction of the railway in Denmark heralded the age of mechanisation in this country; one might even argue that it became the first symbol of modern Denmark. Towards the end of the century, Denmark had an actual railway network which had made a critical contribution to the industrialisation of the country.
Enjoy the many details on ODIN and learn about the development of modern Danish society.