Horten Line

The Horten Line (Norwegian: Hortenlinjen) was a 7.0-kilometer (4.3 mi) branch railway line of the Vestfold Line which ran from Skoppum to Horten, Norway. The line opened as a narrow gauge line on 13 October 1881, the same day as the Vestfold Line. The latter had been proposed to run through Horten, but instead a branch line was chosen. The Horten Line converted to standard gauge in 1949 and electrified in 1957. Passenger transport ran until 1968 and freight trains until 2002. The line was demolished in 2009. Skoppum Station and Borre Station have both been preserved as examples of Balthazar Lange's Swiss chalet style architecture.

Route

The Horten Line was a branch of the Vestfold Line which ran 7.0 kilometers (4.3 mi) from Skoppum Station to Horten Station, which is entirely located within the current municipality of Horten. The line was since 1949 standard gauge and from 1957 electrified at 15 kV 16 ²⁄₃ Hz AC. The line had seven stations, of which three were originally manned stations with passing loops. The line has a continual gradient down from Skoppum Station, which reaches a maximum of 1.88 percent.

Horten

 Horten  is a town and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway—located along the Oslofjord. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Horten. The municipality also includes the villages of Borre, Åsgårdstrand, Skoppum, and Nykirke.

The town of Horten was separated from the municipality of Borre to become a municipality of its own in 1858. The neighboring municipalities of Borre and Horten were merged back together on 1 January 1988. The name of the new united municipality was first Borre, but after a referendum it was changed to Horten on 1 June 2002.

The local newspaper in Horten is named Gjengangeren, and covers mostly local news. It is also available online (see external links section).

General information

The nearest train station in Horten is Skoppum. Skoppum is 1 hour and 10 minutes by train from Oslo Central station. By car Horten is reached by following E18 south, and is approx. 100 km (62 miles) from Oslo. The nearest airport is Sandefjord Airport Torp which is located about 30 minutes by train south of Skoppum.

Horten H.IV

The Horten H.IV was a German tailless flying wing glider in which the pilot lay in a prone position to reduce the frontal area, and hence drag. It was designed by Reimar and Walter Horten in Göttingen. Four were built between 1941 and 1943. They were flown in a number of unofficial competitions in Germany during World War II. After the war the flying examples were transported to the United Kingdom and the United States where several contest successes were achieved.

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Horten Ho 229

The Horten H.IX, RLM designation Ho 229 (or Gotha Go 229 for extensive re-design work done by Gotha to prepare the aircraft for mass production) was a German prototype fighter/bomber initially designed by Reimar and Walter Horten to be built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik late in World War II. It was the first flying wing to be powered by jet engines.

The design was a response to Hermann Göring's call for light bomber designs capable of meeting the "3×1000" requirement; namely to carry 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) of bombs a distance of 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) with a speed of 1,000 kilometres per hour (620 mph). Only jets could provide the speed, but these were extremely fuel-hungry, so considerable effort had to be made to meet the range requirement. Based on a flying wing, the Ho 229 lacked all extraneous control surfaces to lower drag. It was the only design to come even close to the 3×1000 requirements and received Göring's approval. Its ceiling was 15,000 metres (49,000 ft).

Since the appearance of the B-2 Spirit flying-wing stealth bomber in the 1990s, its similarities in role and shape to the Ho 229 has led many to retrospectively describe the Ho 229 as "the first stealth bomber". A static reproduction of the only surviving Ho 229 prototype, the Ho 229 V3, in American hands since the end of World War II was constructed in the very early 21st century and later tested by the U.S. military, who found the basic shape, paint and laminating adhesive composition of the mockup copy would provide for 37% reduction in detection range against the British Chain Home radar used for Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) earlier in the war, but no significant stealth benefit against more modern radar systems in use when the aircraft was under development.