Decauville horse-drawn tram on Naphthaberg

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Decauville horse-drawn tram on Naphthaberg
Decauville oil-fired locomotive in Turkestan
Decauville oil-fired locomotive in Turkestan
Route of the Decauville horse-drawn tram on Naphthaberg
Decauville horse-drawn tram on Naphtaberg, 1887
Route length: 32.5 km
Gauge : 500 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend
Railway station, station - across
 Trans-Caspian Railway
   
 0 Bala-ischem
   
   
 32.5 Naphtha Mountain (Neftjanaja Gora)

The Decauville horse-drawn tram on Naphthaberg was a 32.5 km long horse-drawn tram with a gauge of 500 mm supplied by the French company Decauville , which was built around 1885–1889 near Bala-Ischem (12 km southeast of Balkanabat ) in Turkestan (historical name for part of today's Turkmenistan and six other states) was operated.

history

During the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway , a Decauville narrow-gauge railway was temporarily used to transport the rails and sleepers to the construction site. This was built with a flying track , i.e. H. 5 m long track sections prefabricated in France with a track width of 500 mm. As soon as the broad-gauge tracks were laid, the narrow-gauge tracks at the beginning of the narrow-gauge railway were dismantled and relocated to new construction sites at the other end. It was operated with two oil-fired Decauville steam locomotives with the serial numbers N ° 9 and N ° 10.

During the construction of the railway from Mikhailovsk to Kyzyl-Arwat (today Serdar ), a Decauville railway with a length of 100 km served the engineers and construction workers well. It was operated by a small, petroleum-heated Decauville locomotive. When the broad-gauge railway to Serdar was completed, the Decauville railway was already leading to Bamy . The stretch would likely have remained there for maintenance and transport work had it not been for huge naphtha and ozokerite deposits on Naphtha Mountain, 26.5 km southwest of the Tagyr springs .

The ozokerite, which was used to produce naphtha fuel for the broad-gauge locomotives, had to be delivered from Baku or the Cheleken ( en ) peninsula beforehand. As a result of this discovery, the Decauville Railway was relocated to Naphtha Mountain (Neftjanaja Gora). It transported all of the fuel for the locomotives used on the broad gauge line.

Presumably, the line was operated exclusively as a horse-drawn railway, in any case it was designated as a horse-drawn railway in 1887 at the latest. There were Kyrgyz horse ( s ) used, the per working about 800 to 1000 kg could draw km over a distance of 40th In 1889, rail operations had already ceased.

Today, a shorter broad-gauge route runs straight from Balkanabat to Uzboý on Naphthaberg (until about 1939 in Turkmen Neftedag or gora Neftjanaja , i.e. literally Naphtaberg or Erdölberg , until 2003 in Russian imeni 26 Bakinskich Kommissarow ).

location

The horse-drawn railway ran straight from the Bala-Ischem station to the Naphthaberg. On the route, all materials for the mines there, as well as water and provisions for the workers living there, were transported, and on the way back the naphtha obtained was transported from the mine to the Trans-Caspian Railway. The 32.5 km long route ran almost straight in a west-southwest direction.

The Bala-Ischem station was on the Trans-Caspian Railway. It was 57 kilometers from the end point of the railway at Mikhailovsky Saliv (Михайловский залив) and 9 kilometers south of the Great Baichan Mountains . The station was about 10 kilometers south of a spring a few hundred meters above the steppe.

The naphtha mountain is only insignificant in height. It rises only 83 meters above the level of the steppe at Bala-Ischem and can therefore in no way be compared with the Great Baichan (1817 m above sea level ) or the Little Baichan (875 m above sea level). The actual Naphtha Mountain consists of a range of mountains running from southwest to northeast, about 2 km long and 1 km wide, without particularly steep slopes and gradually descending in the longitudinal direction to the level of the steppe. Small hills stand parallel to the mountain on its north and south sides. The oval plateau delimited by them has a size of 3 × 4 km.

Route and geology

For the first 5 kilometers behind the station, the route led over a level steppe area, consisting of unlayered clay mixed with sand, in which numerous round-cut stones, mostly less than hazelnut-sized, are embedded.

From the fifth kilometer onwards, the route led through brown, clay-layered hills with dense, horizontal layers. These formations are probably deposits from the nearby old river bed of the Usboj , to which the route descended shortly afterwards without any noticeable difference in level. At this point the river must have expanded into a vast, very little deep lake or pond. The ground here is saturated with salt, like the ponds on both sides of the railway wall, in which several centimeters thick, white or light colored bark of pure salt was present. Layers of pure salt were found everywhere below the surface. These salt deposits were 125–150 mm thick and were covered by only 25–75 mm deep, hard-caked sand. No grass grew in this desert, and no trace of life made itself felt. The only stones that are encountered are broken pieces of salt, and along the way there was a house built entirely from blocks of salt that was not damaged by the light rain, which is rare in this area. This salt desert is 12-15 kilometers wide.

From the 24th kilometer onwards, dune formation and drifting sand began, they continued and increased the closer one got to the Naphtha Mountain. This section of the route was in a relentless battle with the moving mountains of sand and required constant repositioning and renewal of the route. In the valley behind the wall-like elevation, the horse-drawn tram led to the drilling rigs No. 1 and No. 2, which stood on layers of sand and gray, sandy clay. On the southern mountain slope there were layers heavily saturated with kirr (asphalt). There were springs on the ridge from which came salty water, naphtha and hydrocarbon gas. The westernmost of these springs was about 67 meters higher than the derrick. It ended in a round, boiling swamp with a diameter of 1 m and abundant salt deposits all around the walls. Black, thick naphtha floated on its surface. Small pieces or balls of earthwax rose from this spring along with the naphtha. The wax was brown, kneadable, and had an aromatic odor. It accumulated at the edges of the source and the associated drainage channel. The quality wasn't particularly good as it was coffee or chocolate brown while the better Galician earthwax was yellow. It was assumed that not insignificant amounts of earthwax must be present in the depths, since quite a lot leaked out.

Locomotives

In Turkestan, two Decauville oil-fired steam locomotives were used on the track material that was eventually reused to build the horse-drawn tram. It is not known whether these were still functional around 1885 when the line on Naphthaberg was built and operated.

Manufacturer Factory no. Construction year design type Gauge Empty
weight		 Service
weight		 Surname operator
Decauville N ° 9 Around 1880 B n2 500 mm 2.75 t 3.5 t Малютка / Maljutka ("Baby") Government of Russia ( Turkestan War )
Decauville N ° 10 Around 1880 B n2 500 mm 2.75 t 3.5 t Бы́стрый / Bystry ("quickly") Government of Russia ( Turkestan War)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Plan of the Naphtaberges in 'Ueber das Transkaspische Naphtaterrain' by Dr. Hj. Sjögren in Baku In: Yearbook of the kk geol. Reichsanstalt. 1887. Volume 37. 1st issue. (Hj. Sjögren.) P. 52
  2. ^ Jules Verne: The Adventures of a Special Correspondent.
  3. ↑ a b Decauville catalog N ° 30, February 1882, p. 64
  4. ↑ a b c Illustré catalog of "Decauville" Chemin de fer portatif a pose instantanée tout en acier: Exposition Universelle 1889. Société de Etablissements Decauville Ainé (Évry). Paris, 1890, 114 p. In: Corporate archive of Georg Fischer AG .
  5. ↑ Charles Thomas Marvin (1854-1890): The Russians at Merv and Herat, and their power of invading India. London, WH Allen & Co., London, 1883. ( text file )
  6. ↑ Eugene Schuyler: Turkistan: Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja. ( Text file )
  7. ^ Max Albrecht: Travel pictures from Trans-Caspia, Bukhara and Turkestan. BoD - Books on Demand, 2011.
  8. ^ Krahmer: Russia in Central Asia. ( Text file )
  9. ^ Paul Decauville: On Portable Railways. P. 132. In: Institution of Mechanical Engineers (Great Britain): Proceedings. May 1884. pp. 126-149 and panels 4-14 (pp. 195-197) .
  10. ^ M. Decauville: Portable Railways. Narrow gauge roads in Great Britain. M. Decauville's system. Railways used at the Panama Canal, in Tunis, etc. In: Scientific American Supplement , No. 446 (July 19, 1884).
  11. ^ About transportable railways (System Decauville) According to the English. In: Messages about objects of the artillery and genius essence. Published by the KK Technical & Administratiaven Military Comité. 1885. Notes section, p. 5.
  12. ↑ George Nathaniel Curzon: Persia and the Persian Question. 1892. New edition: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 72.

Coordinates: 39 ° 21 '0.2 "  N , 54 ° 10' 35.2"  E