Vy (Vygruppen AS, formerly NSB)

Updated: August 2026 – Some database entries carry their own research trap right in the title. Vy (Vygruppen AS, formerly NSB) is one of them: the name itself states that the same company used to go by a different designation. Ignore that, and every search turns up only half the material – and which half is missing keeps changing.

What is Vy (Vygruppen AS, formerly NSB)?

This entry stands for a Norwegian company that this database lists under two name eras: today’s name and the abbreviation NSB used previously. The legal form AS is the Norwegian limited company, and the name element gruppen simply means “the group” in Norwegian – a collective term, not a business area. As an organisation, the Norwegian state railway is profiled under Vy (formerly NSB) in the company overview.

That’s exactly why this entry is treated here as a mixed entry: no single service area can be derived from a group name, and any narrower attribution would be a claim we can’t back up. What the entry does deliver reliably, though, is a practical lesson about company name changes – one that applies well beyond Norway.

A name change splits the archive

Railway photography is a long-term project. Pictures, notes and forum posts get made over decades – and every document carries the name that was current when it was made. When a company changes its name, there’s no clean cut, but a broad transition zone: newer sources use the new name, older ones the old one, and in between lie years where both appear side by side.

What you’ll find under which search term

Search term	Typical find	What you do with it
Current name	recent sightings and photos	check the current state
Former abbreviation	older photos, forum posts, vehicle lists	gain historical depth
Both names combined	vehicle and class lists	track vehicles across eras
Vehicle number alone	everything, regardless of company name	the most reliable search there is
Place name plus year	sightings at one location	reconstruct a location’s history

The last row holds the real lesson: the vehicle number survives every name change. Note it down consistently, and you can still identify a sighting even once companies, brands and liveries have long since changed. Product brands are a different case, such as Flåmsbana, which stays stable for decades regardless of corporate names. Our guide to identifying classes explains how it’s built and how to identify vehicles systematically.

Vehicles that have lived through two name eras

A look at the class database shows the effect immediately: vehicle families such as the El 18 or the tilting train BM70 “Signatur” carry a double designation made up of the old and new name. Others, such as the El 17, carry only one of the two forms.

That’s not a formatting error but established practice: vehicles outlast company names. A locomotive running both before and after a name change has to stay findable under both terms – otherwise the research trail breaks exactly where it gets interesting.

In practice at the lineside, that leads to a simple rule: photograph the markings, not just the vehicle. A close-up of the data panel area will later answer questions that don’t even occur to you at the moment of the sighting.

Building an archive that survives renaming

File your photos and notes by company name, and you build an archive that becomes useless with the next name change. A more robust structure builds on unchanging features and carries the name only as an extra field.

Our piece on building a photo archive describes how to set up such a system from scratch; the guide to keeping a sightings log explains ongoing recording. Anyone wanting to practise the effect on further Norwegian entries will find, in this database, CargoNet, the tourist-oriented Flåm Utvikling (Flåmsbana), and the separate entry Vy Tog.

Where you’ll still come across the old name today

A former company name doesn’t vanish from the network the day the rebranding happens. It lingers in places no one thinks of at first – and that’s exactly where a closer look pays off.

Most often it’s vehicles whose relettering is still pending or only partly done: new lettering on the front, old on the side, or the other way round. Equally typical are lower-priority vehicles that visit the workshop less often – service vehicles, stabled units, or wagons held in reserve. Old lettering also clings on stubbornly at fixed installations: on buildings, signs, ticket offices and signage that no one renews purely for appearance’s sake.

For documentation, every one of these observations is valuable, because it captures a state that’s due to disappear on schedule. A photo of a half-relettered locomotive will, in five years, be a source that doesn’t exist a second time. What matters is a sober description: note what you actually see – “old markings on the side, new on the front” – rather than turning that into a claim about timing or process.

Anyone out regularly is best off keeping a short list of such find-spots. It costs nothing, and it means that on your next visit you deliberately check whether anything has changed. Repeat shots like these build up into a series over time – and series are far more valuable to an archive than single pictures.

Common mix-ups

• Old name equals outdated information – sources under the former name aren’t wrong, just historical.
• New company name equals new vehicles – renaming and vehicle procurement have nothing to do with each other.
• Same name stem equals same company – entries with similar names prove neither identity nor difference.
• Double designation equals error – spellings like “NSB/Vy” in vehicle lists are deliberate, not careless.
• Markings equal current status – vehicles often keep carrying old lettering for years.

Verdict

For railway enthusiasts, a company name change isn’t an annoyance but a dating aid. Know both names, search for both, and document both separately, and you can bring material from different decades together instead of losing it.