Bosnian gauge
The so-called Bosnian gauge , also known as the “Bosnaspur”, refers to the railway gauges from 760 mm to 762 mm (30 inches).
A large part of the railway network in the former Yugoslavia was built under Austro-Hungarian administration as a narrow-gauge railway with a 760 mm gauge. Most of the routes in this gauge were in Bosnia and Herzegovina , where narrow-gauge trains were colloquially called "Ćiro". They emerged in the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century. The track width of 760 mm is still known today as the Bosnian track or "Bosnaspur", it was then spread throughout the entire Danube Monarchy.
history
The nucleus of this extensive route network was a line from Bosnisch Brod to Zenica of the Bosnabahn built as a military field railway . This was built by the construction company Hügel & Sager with used material, which had previously been used in the construction of the railway line from Timișoara to Orșova on the Danube (now Romania). For the widespread view that Negrelli had tracks laid on the (narrow) paths from the time of the Pharaohs for the construction of the Suez Canal , which only allowed a gauge of approx. 760 mm (30 inches) and was therefore called the Pharanon Spur in the Austrian railway language , but there is no evidence.
The Bosnabahn, which was soon extended to Sarajevo , was the first modern means of transport in the region at the time and was quickly adapted and expanded to meet the needs of civil public transport. The main routes of the region were the East Bosnian railway and some with rack sections provided Narentabahn of Sarajevo through Mostar to the Adriatic coast .
Later, in the area of the entire Danube Monarchy, a track width of 760 mm was prescribed for the construction of narrow-gauge railways. In the event of war, sufficient suitable vehicles should be available for the kuk Heeresfeldbahnen . For example, all the major narrow-gauge railways in today's Austria were built in this gauge, such as the Mariazellerbahn , Pinzgaubahn , Salzkammergut-Lokalbahn , Zillertalbahn , Ybbstalbahn . The first narrow-gauge railway in today's Austria was the Steyrtalbahn , which went into operation in 1889 . The importance of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans region led to neighboring countries joining the Bosnian gauge, such as Bulgaria and Serbia .
After the establishment of the Yugoslav state after the First World War , the Bosnian and Serbian routes were connected by a new route over the Šargan Mountains, creating a coherent narrow-gauge network that opened up large parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia as well as parts of Montenegro and the Dalmatian coastal region . Thus, through express trains ran from Belgrade via Sarajevo to Dubrovnik on a narrow track. This route network was supplemented by a large number of non-public forest railways and industrial railways (e.g. Steinbeisbahn ).
After the Second World War, the narrow-gauge railways were gradually replaced by standard- gauge railways (gauge 1435 mm) or discontinued due to inefficiency. The last lines for passenger traffic, including the Bosnian Eastern Railway from Sarajevo to Višegrad , were in operation on the Bosnian track until May 28, 1978. Some sections of the route in Serbia remained for freight traffic for a few years. In Bosnia only a short industrial line, the Banovići coal railway , remained. The section over the Sargan Mountains in Serbia was rebuilt as a museum railway between 1999 and 2003 . This railway, called Šarganska osmica (Šargan-eight), from Mokra Gora to Šargan Vitasi, is part of an extensive tourism project for western Serbia and was extended to the Bosnian Višegrad until autumn 2010.
Current usage
Today, railways in Bosnian gauge are mainly operated according to schedule in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. In Slovakia there are still a few kilometers of routes. In Romania, over 50 kilometers of the Wassertal Railway are in operation as a forest railway. In Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia there are no longer any tracks in this gauge except for the museum railway and short distances in industrial companies. In Italy, all 760 mm routes were completely dismantled by the 1960s at the latest. Lines in Poland and Ukraine ( Borschawatalbahn ) were either closed or rebuilt to 750 mm. Unless they were in the hands of local operating companies, the remaining routes in Austria were all handed over to the federal states in the 2000s and are now operated as modern local railways with timed timetables. The railways were or are the focus of modernization programs on the part of the operating companies, so the Zillertalbahn is to be converted to hydrogen operation by 2022 and the Murtalbahn to an innovative electric drive method in the course of the 2020s.
Possibly the world's youngest narrow-gauge railway in Bosnian gauge was built after the turn of the millennium with the participation of Austrian companies for the tourist development of the Al Hoota Cave in Oman .
The 762 mm (30 inch) gauge, also known as the Bosnian gauge in Austria, can still be found today in the former British sphere of influence, such as in India .
literature
- Helga Berdan: The power politics of Austria-Hungary and the railway construction in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Diploma thesis at the University of Vienna online (pdf; 8.29 MB) .
- Tadej Braté: The steam locomotives of Yugoslavia. Slezak Verlag, Vienna 1971, ISBN 3-900134-01-4 ( International Archive for Locomotive History 17).
- Keith Chester: The Narrow Gauge Railways of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Stenvall, Malmö 2007, ISBN 978-91-7266-166-0 .
- Keith Chester: Bosnia-Hercegovina. Narrow Gauge Album. Stenvall, Malmö 2010, ISBN 978-91-7266-176-9 .
- Alfred Horn: The railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ployer, Vienna 1964 ( railway. Special issue).
- J. Rihosek , K. Schäffer: Locomotives of the railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ployer, Vienna 1952 ( railway. Special issue).
- Arthur Meyer, Josef Pospichal: Rack railway locomotives from Floridsdorf , Verlag bahnmedien.at, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-9503304-0-3 .
- Werner Schiendl : The railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1867–1918 , Edition Bahn im Film, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-9503096-5-2 .
Movie
- Narrow gauge steam in the mountains of Bosnia , Rio Grande Classic Video No. 2013, VGB VerlagsGruppeBahn, Fürstenfeldbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-89580-782-4
Web links
- Photo reports from the 1960s (English)
- The Steinbeisbahn, 1970
- Cog railway operation on the Narenta Railway, 1966
- Narrow gauge railways in Bosnia (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Communications from the Austrian Geographical Society
- ^ Keith Chester, The Narrow Gauge Railways of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Stenvall, Malmö 2007, ISBN 978-91-7266-166-0 , p. 22
- ↑ Eight hydrogen trains cost the Zillertalbahn 80 million euros. June 1, 2018, accessed March 12, 2020 .
- ↑ The Murtalbahn should run faster. Retrieved August 28, 2018 .