Prundu Bârgăului – Vatra Dornei railway line

Prundu Bârgăului – Vatra Dornei
Course book route (CFR) :	502/516
Route length:	71 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	25 kV 50 Hz  ~
Legend from Bistrița 83.371 Prundu Bârgăului formerly Borgóprund to Bistrița Bârgăului Tiha Bârgăului formerly Borgótiha Macaz Tureac formerly Turjágó Mureșeni formerly Marosborgó Valea Străjii Cicera Carare Tihuța Magura Mânăstirea Fântânelelor Șendroaia Dorna Mica 141.811 Dornișoara formerly Dorna-völgy former border between Hungary and Austria 136,000 Dorna Burcut 129.024 Poiana Stampei formerly Pojana-Stampi ~ 125 Turbăria Stampei ~ 122 Podu Coșnei by Ilva Mică 119,500 Floreni 115.010 Dorna Candrenilor formerly Dorna-Kandreny Dorna 113.051 Roșu Dorna 108.872 Vatra Dornei Băi formerly Dorna-Watra after Câmpulung Moldovenesc

The Prundu Bârgăului – Vatra Dornei or kuk Kraftwagenbahn No. 1 is a partially existing railway line in Romania . It ran from Transylvania into the Bukovina , crossing a ridge of the Eastern Carpathians .

history

Medical train of the motor vehicle railway on the Tihuța pass

The line from Borgó-Prund to Dorna Watra, built in 1914/1915

Route with altitude information

Elevation profile

During the construction of the railway line, it was on the territory of the Habsburg dual monarchy .

Bukovina, then part of the Austrian part of the empire, could only be reached by rail from Vienna or Budapest via the line from Lemberg to Chernivtsi that ran through Galicia . The railway line from Hatna to Kimpolung (opened in 1888) and its continuation to Dorna Watra (opened in 1902) were built with the aim, among other things, of creating a connection to Ilva Mică in northern Transylvania . Corresponding plans had existed since 1898, but failed because of the financial requirements.

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the problem of the lack of a railway connection between Transylvania and Bukovina became acute. Russian troops occupied large parts of Galicia in the same year and thus interrupted the route between Bukovina and the rest of Austria-Hungary. The 7th Army under General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin in the south of Bukovina was cut off from all modern transport routes. The competent Austro-Hungarian authorities arranged for the construction of a temporary railway across the Carpathian Mountains. The necessary speed did not allow the construction of tunnels or larger bridges. Two options were considered: on the one hand, a connection from Borșa over the Prislop Pass to Jakobeny (today Iacobeni) in the valley of the Golden Bistritz and a train from the valley of the Bistritz over the region of the Tihuța Pass to Dorna Watra (today Vatra Dornei) and finally built both routes.

Construction work on the Tihuța Pass began on December 1, 1914. About 300 civilians and about 5600 prisoners of war worked on the railway line. It was built in standard gauge (1435 mm), but had 230 curves and gradients of up to 8% and ran over long distances along the road built in 1848 over the Tihuța Pass. The highest point on the route was 1145 meters above sea level. In the vicinity of Dornișoara (formerly Dorna-völgy) the border between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the empire was crossed.

The railway line was opened on August 15, 1915. Special petrol-electric powered railcars were used on the section from Tiha Bârgăului to Dornișoara for the extraordinary incline . These railcars had an output of 150 hp. Each train consisted of four or five cars and had a transport capacity of 30 to 50 tons. Regular trains ran from Prundu Bârgăului to Tiha Bârgăului and from Dornișoara to Dorna Watra.

Austria-Hungary's military situation improved significantly in 1915. Nevertheless, the new route was used for military transports. Food was also brought to Austria-Hungary from Romania, which was still neutral at the time, at the beginning of 1916.

The Russian Brusilov offensive in 1916 interrupted the Galician railways again; the provisional route was of increasing importance in the supply of the Austro-Hungarian troops. As the Russian army advanced further and further towards Dorna Watra from the north and east, the Austrian authorities evacuated 45 locomotives and numerous wagons over the railway line described here in 1916 in order to save them from Russian access. 25,000 wounded soldiers and 30,000 civilian refugees were also brought out of Bukovina in this way. Although the railway line had standard gauge, the locomotives and wagons to be evacuated and used on normal lines could not drive directly on the route described here due to the steep incline and the tight curve radii, but had to be dismantled in Dornișoara, loaded onto the special trains and in Tiha Bârgăului to be reassembled.

In September 1917, 14 pairs of trains ran each day (compared to 5 in 1915). Due to the peace treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest at the beginning of 1918, the route lost its immediate military importance, but was still used as a means of transport by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. At the same time, concrete plans for a permanent Carpathian crossing between Ilva Mică and Dorna Watra began. Shortly before the end of the war - in October 1918 - the line was equipped with 7 railcars and 92 wagons. The situation changed with the collapse of Austria-Hungary in October / November 1918. Both Bukovina and Transylvania became part of Romania. Before that, the Austrians and Hungarians destroyed both the line and the locomotives and wagons.

On January 15, 1919, the Romanian state railway company CFR took over the route and began restoring it. The destroyed locomotives and wagons were repaired in workshops in Cluj , Dej and Apahida . The line was reopened on June 8, 1922. A drive from Tiha Bârgăului to Dornișoara (34 km) took 2 ½ hours. Eleven more stops were set up between the two locations.

After the commissioning of the Ilva Mică – Floreni railway , the construction of which had dragged on since 1924, the section from Tiha Bârgăului to Dornișoara was closed on December 18, 1938, while the section from Dornișoara to Vatra Dornei, which can be used with normal trains, continued to be used. The disused section was dismantled in 1939/40.

Current situation

The section from Prundu Bârgăului to Dornișoara no longer exists. The single-track, non-electrified section from Dornișoara to Floreni is mainly used for freight transport (especially wood); in addition, there are currently (2010) two local trains per day and direction. The section from Floreni to Vatra Dornei is single-track and electrified. It is part of the course book route 502 from Suceava to Ilva Mică and thus an important link between Transylvania and Bukovina. There are around four local and six express trains per day and direction.

literature

• Dieter Stanfel: Kuk military field railways in the First World War . DGEG Medien GmbH, Hövelhof 2008, ISBN 978-3-937189-41-3 .
• Günter Krause, Dieter Stanfel: Kuk military field railways in the picture . DGEG Medien GmbH, Hövelhof 2013, ISBN 978-3-937189-70-3 .
• Mauro Bottegal: Ferrovie Portatili Della Prima Guerra Mondiale, ISBN 978-0-244-15427-1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ D. Turnock: Railway Network Development in inter-war Romania: Economic and Strategic Motives . In: Geographica Pannonica 2003, edition 8, pp. 16–24
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Ioan Abutnăriței: O cale ferată uitată - linia "benzino-electrică" Dornișoara - Tiha Bîrgăului in Monitorul de Dorna of October 26, 2005, accessed on June 19, 2009
3. ↑ Alexandru Mureşan: Epopeea Feroviară Românească , Universitatea Petru Maior Târgu Mureş, 2002
4. ↑ ^{a b} David Turnock: The economy of East Central Europe 1815-1989 . Routledge, 2006. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-415-18053-5
5. ↑ Gunther Martin, Alfred Niel: You steam horse with a smoking chimney or railway breviary . Paul Neff-Verlag, Vienna / Berlin 1975, pp. 99–122