The sole service was the passenger train Unionsexpressen between Oslo and Stockholm; it had previously offered freight haulage on contract.

In 2007, the automotive distributor Autolink started purchasing the autorack operations from Ofotbanen, and at the same time bought 40% of the company.

In competition with SJ, it operates one daily round trip, in 5 hours 45 minutes, between Oslo and Stockholm, using renovated stock from the 1960s.

The service has not operated since 7 October 2008, due to the bankruptcy in Ofotbanen, and SJ no longer being willing to rent out locomotives to the company.

The purchase raised controversy, because the potential operator Banetransport had offered full market price for the trains.

[12] Also, NSB had to rent back several of the locomotives for six months, while six of eleven brand-new Class 93 trains were out of service.

[22] It also announced that it was going to bid for the public service obligations for subsidized passenger railway transport that the government was planning to conduct in 2006.

[23] In June, Ofotbanen received permission to operate freight trains throughout the entire railway network in Norway.

[24] In September, Ofotbanen was one of six companies prequalified to bid for the first public service obligation tender on the Gjøvik Line.

Ofotbanen had just won the public tender for the contract, and the company threatened to take the municipality to court for violation of competition laws.

[28] In December, the government granted permission for Ofotbanen to operate charter trains throughout the entire railway network.

[30][31] The following general assembly in December 2005, GB Group made a private placement of NOK 11.7 million in Ofotbanen, increasing the consortium's ownership to 52%.

[35] Ofotbanen was also in negotiations about transporting 700 annual trains of ore for Rana Gruber, but the contract was instead awarded to CargoNet.

[36] By 2005, Ofotbanen only had a 50% utilization of their stock, but in March a contract for the rest of the year was signed securing full use of the equipment to transport timber in Southern Sweden, with two trains in continual traffic.

The extraordinary traffic was needed to clean up after the Gudrun storm, and the contract gave a revenue of NOK 20 million.

Accounts payable were giving liquidity problems, and Ofotbanen announced that they needed more capital, estimated at NOK 8 million.

[40][41][42] In November, the Norwegian Rail Inspectorate threatened to withdraw the company's safety license, since they had failed to show proper maintenance of the rolling stock.

CEO of Ofotbanen, Terje Østensen, felt that the issues taken up by the inspectorate were mere formalities, and that it was difficult to make necessary documentation, stating that in his opinion, none of the procedures criticized actually influenced safety.

[49] However, SJ and NSB held monopolies on non-subsidized passenger trains services in their respective countries, and it would not be possible for a private company to operate the route.

[51] In March 2008, plans had been launched to start operations in April, but Ofotbanen had not met the requirements to get a safety licence from the inspectorate.

[52] The company rented rolling stock from SJ, including an Rc locomotives, and newly renovated cars from the 1960s.

The company stated that the service was meant to be more luxurious than with SJ, including wider seating (three instead of four abreast) and a wooden interior.

They stated that the deal with Ofotbanen was discontinued because Rail Management would not allow additional private placements of capital, nor sell their shares to Autolink.

[62] The court ruled that an interim decision could not be made due to the complexity of the contracts, and that a normal lawsuit would have to be carried out to determine the matter.

[66][67] Autolink had already founded their company Cargolink on 27 March,[62][68] and received an operating and safety licence from the inspectorate on 18 September.