Žakarovce industrial railway
The industrial railway Žakarovce ( ung. Zsakaroczvölgyi Iparvasut ) was a meter gauge , as cog railway running Erzbahn in the former Upper Hungary . It connected the iron ore mines at Žakarovce with the Göllnitz Valley Railway, which runs in the Hnilec valley , and the Huta Mária ironworks (also Mariánská Huta, now part of Gelnica; German Marienhütte ). It was the first such railway in what is now Slovakia .
history
Since the 13th century there was a lively iron and copper ore mining around Krompachy ( Krompach ) and Gelnica ( Göllnitz ). While Krompachy received a direct railway connection to the Moravian-Silesian industrial area as early as 1872 with the main line of the Kaschau-Oderberger Railway , Gelnica was only opened for traffic in 1884 by the Göllnitz Valley Railway from Margecany . To connect the mines near Žakarovce, a meter-gauge, almost four-kilometer-long ore railway was built at the same time. In order to overcome the enormous difference in altitude from the mines down into the Hnilec Valley, the two-kilometer stretch was designed as a Riggenbach cogwheel railway .
Ore was transported down the valley in self-unloading wagons to the Marienhütte ironworks - where it was transported directly to the blast furnace via slides - or to the Žakarovce train station for further shipment. Uphill, wood, coal and coke were delivered to the mines. 32 tons of ore could be transported in one train ride. The maximum speed allowed downhill was 8 km / h and uphill 12 km / h.
After just a few years of operation, the cumbersome cogwheel train operation was given up in favor of a cable car to the Kluknava station on the Kaschau-Oderberger Bahn. In 1899 the ore railway was shut down and dismantled a little later.
- Technical specifications
- Track width: 1000 mm
- Rack system: Riggenbach
- Route length: 3.9 km
- Length of the rack section: 2.0 km
- greatest gradient: 110 ‰
- Difference in altitude: 233 m
Locomotives and wagons
See also: Zsakaroczvölgyi Iparvasut No. 1 and 2
The Erzbahn owned two cogwheel steam locomotives for combined adhesion and cogwheel operation, which had been supplied by the Esslingen machine factory . After the shutdown, the locomotives were no longer used. One made its way to Štrba in 1902 to the Lake Czorba rack railway in the High Tatras , where it was probably no longer used. In 1910 they were sold to the Vienna branch of Orenstein & Koppel , their whereabouts are unknown.
Similar locomotives based on the same construction plans were later manufactured by the Floridsdorf locomotive factory for the Csorbasee cog railway and the Achensee railway in Austria. They are still in operation on the Achenseebahn today.
The car park consisted of 39 self-unloading cars for transporting ore and six panel cars for pit timber. All had a handbrake, nine also had a brake gear .
literature
- Karel Just: Parní lokomotivy na úzkorozchodných tratích ČSD . Vydavatelství dopravní literatury Ing. Luděk Čada, Litoměřice, 2001, ISBN 80-902706-5-4