the Fortification Committee of 1819 ()—which was largely influenced by the committee's secretary Johan Peter Lefrén—led to nothing more than the opinion that the large rivers up north—especially the Ångerman River—would benefit the defence and that no major fortifications were to be built. In another study from 1824, colonel—and much later Swedish Minister for War—Gustaf Oscar Peyron suggested that it would be better to fortify positions just south of Boden—along the more northern Lule River—for example at Sävast or Avan. However no major changes were made, partially due to the limited military interest, but also because of the large amounts of money that was spent on building Karlsborg Fortress and modernizing other older fortifications in southern Sweden. Railroads speed up planning It was not until fifteen years later, when yet another committee—the Coastal Fortification Committee of 1839 ()—studied the defence of Norrland, that the Swedish Armed Forces started to focus a bit more on the northern provinces. This study however mainly presented plans for middle Norrland, and the provinces of Medelpad, Ångermanland and Jämtland. Those provinces had a more significant role as it was there that the main roads of Sweden started to intersect with the road network of Norway, which at the time was allied with Sweden. The road network north of this area consisted of the large coastal road—the only major north–south road—from Haparanda and all the way through Norrland down to Gävle. All the other major roads exclusively ran southeast–northwest—following the run of the large rivers—before ending in wilderness and thus did not provide any route further west into Norway and on to the Atlantic coast. The plans to strengthen Norrland by building a central fortress either on Frösön outside Östersund, or closer to the coast at Borgsjö outside Ånge, once again fell flat due to lack of money and lower priority compared to fortifications in southern Sweden. 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