By the 1860s, the first Swedish railway main lines () were completed in the southern part of the country, and by 1881 the Northern Main Line had reached Ånge. This, and the opening of the railway line connecting Sundsvall–Östersund–Trondheim (the Central and Meråker Lines) a year later strengthened the plans for a defensive line in the middlemost provinces of Norrland. At the same time, on the other side of the Bothnian Gulf, the Finnish main railway to Oulu had almost been completed, and would soon be of great use for the Russians to transport military personnel and supplies towards the Swedish border in case of war. Combined with the planned Luleå–Boden–Gällivare–Kiruna–Narvik railway stretch (the Iron Ore and Ofoten Lines), this would pose a great opportunity for the Russians to fulfill their latent wish to seize control of northern Scandinavia and the Atlantic ports on the Norwegian coast. At least according to some officers—both Swedish and Norwegian—which in the second half of the 1880s noticed the increased strategic importance of northern Scandinavia and Lapland as an effect of the construction of the railway lines in the area. This was also noticed by the Riksdag member Johan Erik Nyström from Norrbotten's electoral district who—worried about the railway to Oulu—put forward a motion about strengthening the Upper Norrland defence in 1885. The length of the railway lines started to affect strategic planning, and in some cases military decisions influenced the planning of new railway lines.