Berzasca Forest Railway
| Berzasca – Drencova | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | approx. 70 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 760 mm ( Bosnian gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Berzasca forest railway was a forest railway in Romania with a track width of 760 mm. It was operated by the state forest railway company Căile Ferate Forestiere (CFF). Construction of the railway began in 1924, and operations ceased in 1993.
The distance
From Berzasca , the actual starting point of the forest railway and operational center, a track led along the banks of the Danube to the Drencova loading port, where there was also a connection to the Drencova forest railway, which was closed in 1965. The starting point was 77 meters above sea level, making the Berzasca forest railway the lowest-lying forest railway in Romania. The main route led from Berzasca on the Danube into the valley of the Berzasca river in the southern foothills of the Banat Mountains and ended after 46 kilometers at the Clota loading point. Several side branches led to loading points off the main route. At the time of its greatest expansion, the route network had a total length of approx. 70 kilometers.
Steam locomotives
The railway was operated with steam locomotives until it was closed, as the diesel locomotive types available were too heavy for the poor superstructure and were also too difficult to turn. A three-axle steam locomotive named "Hermann" was preserved in Bucharest . Otherwise, mainly four-axle machines were used, from 1987 also on those of the MÁVAG type 70 . The 764,222 from the locomotive factory MÁVAG in Budapest and 764,224 by Orenstein & Koppel stand today in the field and industrial railway museum in Lower Austria's field . The 764.219 from Krauss in Munich was acquired by Club 760 and is stored in the narrow-gauge railway museum in Frojach-Katsch on the Murtalbahn . The 764.211 is used today in front of special trains on the Wassertalbahn .
literature
- Florian Hofmeister: With Steam Through the Carpathian Mountains - Forest Railways in Romania II . ECM book, Nördlingen 1993, ISBN 3-88563-023-0
- Rudolf Reichel, Hans Hufnagel: Forests and Steam - 1000km on Romania's forest railways . Self-published, Vienna 1990