Kemencei Erdei Múzeumvasút

Museum railroad operation with MD-40 diesel locomotive, 2003

Route

Route length:

4.2 km

Gauge :

600 mm ( narrow gauge )

Legend

	0	Kemence
	0.25	from the forge of the forest estate
	0.65	Csarnapuszta
	1.6	Kőrózsa
		former route to the castle
	1.9	Godóvár
	3.9	Feketevölgy
	4.0	Feketevölgy (Vilati)
	4.1	End of the drivable route
	6.3	Hamuház
	7.2	Halyagos

The Kemencei Erdei Múzeumvasút is a 4.2 km long narrow gauge - forest railway with a track width of 600 mm in Kemence , 60 km north of Budapest in Hungary . It is operated on a voluntary basis as a museum railway on weekends from the end of March to the end of October .

history

Forest railway

The first tracks of the forest railway were laid between Kemence and Királyháza in 1910. The Csarnavölgy line, which is still in service, opened in 1913. After the two main lines opened, several branch lines were built, most of which were only in operation for a few years.

The routes were laid out so that they always had a gradient towards the village. Therefore, horses (and later locomotives) were only required to bring the empty wagons into the wooded areas in the morning. From there, after loading, they drove back to the village, driven by gravity and braked by a brake .

Until 2000 the forest railway was not intended for the transport of people. There were no settlements around the railway, and forestry was not interested in creating a tourist railway.

The increasing construction of forest roads meant that the forest railway had an uncertain future ahead of it. In 1968 the Királyháza route was abandoned. The Csarnavölgy line was retained and was not officially closed until 1992, although it was almost not used in its final years.

Decline

After the shutdown, the conditions deteriorated increasingly. In recent years only one locomotive remained operational. The condition of the tracks deteriorated and some rails were stolen.

The first bridge, 2000 before restoration

In 1995 a flood damaged two of the bridges and part of the railway embankment. In 1999 an even stronger flood destroyed almost everything in the valley and devastated all but one of the bridges, while only the tracks on the edge of the village survived.

reconstruction

In order to avoid further deterioration, the Association of Narrow Gauge Railroad Friends (Kisvasutak Baráti Köre Egyesület) has been operating the line and the forestry properties since January 1, 2000.

For the first four years, the lift was in operation on a short, but intact 1.8 km section between Kemence and Godóvár Beach, which was still intact after the floods. After the restoration of three bridges and several stolen sections, the route was extended by another 1.8 km to the Pityur-rétje station, which no longer exists today. Feketevölgy station was reached in 2009, and its second platform was built in 2015.

The drivable route is now 4.1 km long, and another 3.1 km are waiting to be restarted.

Rail vehicles

The rail vehicles are very heterogeneous: the locomotives mostly consist of MD-40 locomotives that either come from Kemence or were found and rescued on disused railways, but there are also Ue-28 and MV locomotives. Kemence is the only forest railway in Hungary that has battery-electric locomotives (El-9). The passenger cars were mostly built locally.