Banovići Coal Railway
| Banovići Coal Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 83-159 at the loading point in Banovići
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| Route length: | approx. 8 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 760 mm ( Bosnian gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dual track : | Oskova – Grivice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Banovići coal railway is a narrow-gauge mining railway in the Tuzla canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . It connects several loading points of the lignite opencast mine near Banovići with a central coal washing and loading facility at the end of the standard-gauge railway line Brčko – Banovići . It is the last line in the country in the so-called Bosnian gauge of 760 mm, which is in commercial operation. There was no connection to the extensive Yugoslav network of the same gauge.
history
Lignite was mined in Banovići from the 1930s onwards, and the first railways with a gauge of 760 mm have already been built. There were also some forest railways of the same gauge in the region, which served as suppliers for sawmills, but were also used for coal transports by the Second World War at the latest . With the industrialization of Yugoslavia after the war, coal production was massively expanded and a coherent network of narrow-gauge railways about 40 kilometers in length was created around Banovići. The standard-gauge feeder line from Brčko was built in 1947 by youth brigades , as were some sections of the narrow-gauge railways. A central depot with main workshop was built in Banovići. From the connecting station on the standard gauge to Banovići, workers' trains were also run on the narrow-gauge railway.
The heart of the network has always been the double-track line between the Oskova coal washing plant, which is also reloaded onto the standard-gauge railway, and the Grivice loading point. After the branch lines and forest railways were discontinued, this main line remained in operation as the last section in the 1990s. During the Bosnian War and also after the Dayton Agreement , the coal railway played a key role in supplying the Tuzla power station and thus the energy supply for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . Because there was a lack of diesel fuel, steam locomotives were used more frequently again. At the same time, the narrow-gauge railway as well as the standard-gauge line attracted the attention of international railway enthusiasts because of their steam locomotives. Special trains were chartered by tour groups with increasing frequency.
In 2005, the single-track extension of the line from Grivice to the Turija loading station was put back into operation after around a decade of standstill.
Tourism and future plans
The photo trains for railway photographers usually consist of a class 83 locomotive and four four-axle coal wagons and, depending on the weather, a flat wagon with some sleepers on it as improvised benches or a closed freight wagon for the passengers. With this train, bogus approaches and photo stops are staged at prominent points along the route . Meanwhile, regular traffic takes place on the second track. Numerous tour operators for rail tourism already offer such special trips on the Banovići coal railway. The management of the railway quickly recognized the financial advantages of this secondary business and a constructive cooperation between the railway company, tour operators and railway enthusiasts has come about. As early as 1998, through contacts in the railway scene, the 83-180 locomotive was sold to the Feistritztalbahn and commissioned in the main Banovići workshop. The two 83s of the Šarganska osmica in Serbia received revisions in Banovići. In 2009 the MÁVAG 55-99, which had previously been erected as a monument, was put back into operation and some passenger cars with wooden car bodies were built to offer the tourist public a ride away from the railway photographers.
In the long term, for economic reasons, the replacement of the narrow-gauge railway with a conveyor belt system, as is already used within the mining area, is to be expected. The city of Banovići is interested in using the railway for tourism and has commissioned a study on the subsequent use for tourism. It is proposed to rebuild one of the old forest railway lines in the Oskova valley as a tourist railway. A mining and railway museum was to be built in Banovići. A small open-air museum has already been built there, in which some mining machines and a coal train consisting of a ČKD locomotive and an older type of coal wagon are on display. A track connector leads directly from the route into the site.
Route description
The coal railway runs essentially in an east-west direction. The eastern end of the route is the Oskova coal washing plant, located on the slope above the standard gauge Banovići station. There is a narrow-gauge connecting track to the train station below. The route runs on two tracks along the edge of the forest, initially to the beginning of Banovići and passes the open-air museum mentioned here. The first of the loading facilities for the raw coal is located in the village, and is loaded from the open-cast mine via conveyor belts. This is followed by the area of the depot and the main workshop. Several locomotives, some of which have been parked for a long time, are stored here on the open-air site as spare parts donors. Behind Banovići the terrain becomes a little more open and takes on a more village-like character. Noticeable landmarks in this section are the transmission systems on Vidikovac Mountain and the minaret of the Grivice Mosque. After about five kilometers, the double-track line ends at the Grivice loading station. From here, the line continues on a single track on the section that was reopened in 2005 to the Turija loading point. The railway runs continuously upwards and has no noteworthy buildings.
In terms of safety, the coal railway was initially equipped with wing signals, which were later replaced by light signals. Today the operation is handled by radio.
Traction vehicles
The fleet of the Banovići coal railway was extremely diverse and consisted of numerous rows of locomotives from various origins.
Immediately after the Second World War, a large number of different types of industrial and works railway as well as locomotives from Waldbahnen were used, including numerous Orenstein & Koppel three-couplers built in the 1920s that were quickly replaced by more powerful types. In 1947, several examples of the MÁVAG Type 70 were delivered, which were used until the end of the 1970s. After the break with the Soviet Union in 1948 and the associated trade embargoes of the Comecon countries against Yugoslavia, Porter was the first manufacturer in the USA to come into play in 1950. A total of 15 American B-couplers with saddle tanks were used on the narrow-gauge tracks around Banovići, some of which, however, were given to other industrial companies. Before that, in 1949, ten 250 hp three- couplers of the factory type 122-760CN / 245 were delivered by ČKD , as the Czechoslovak industry had only followed Moscow's call with some delay. Some of them are still in Banovići today, two of which are usually operational.
With the gradual discontinuation of the narrow-gauge railways in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the coal railway also acquired narrow-gauge locomotives from the state railways that had become available there from the 1970s. After the Steinbeisbahn was closed in 1975, two machines of the JŽ series 1932–1937 came to Banovići. The mountain railway freight tractors built by Škoda in 1946 were the most powerful locomotives on the coal railway to date. They were followed by seven examples of the class 83 universal locomotive with a tender , all of which came from the last delivery series built by Đuro Đaković after 1945 . Two of them are currently operational (as of 2018).
In 1984 the coal railway acquired its first diesel locomotives with four of the 740 series . These locomotives, which were barely ten years old when they were shut down in 1978, proved to be well suited for mainline service, but a few steam locomotives were still kept in stock for the heavy shunting at the Oskova coal washing plant. In 1987, two new diesel locomotives of unconventional design followed: The two four-axle DHL 450U machines manufactured by MIN in Niš were articulated, but they proved to be extremely error-prone. So after a few years they were converted into three two-axle shunting locomotives with the series designation 720, which are mainly used at the loading points.
The MÁVAG 55-99 (built in 1947) was reactivated as a museum locomotive
The ČKD 25-30 comes from a delivery from 1949
The Škoda Schlepptenderlok 1932 at the Club 760 sold
83-158, the two operational 83 in Banovići are the last of their series in commercial freight traffic
The diesel locomotives of the 740 series always run with the front end open for better cooling
The two-axle shunting locomotive 720-001 in Oskova
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Brcko-Banovici: The First Railway Road built by Children. In: Sarajevo Times. April 2, 2015, accessed February 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Chester, Bosnia-Hercegovina. Narrow Gauge Album. P. 30
- ^ Chester, The Narrow Gauge Railways of Bosnia-Hercegovina. P. 284
- ↑ Schiendl / Gemeinböck: The railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1918–2016. P. 294
- ^ Projects: Banovići. In: Ostgleis.ch association. Retrieved February 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Using the mining railway infrastructure for the tourism potential. Adila Nuric et al., January 2015, accessed on February 14, 2018 .
- ↑ Chester, Bosnia-Hercegovina. Narrow Gauge Album. P. 32
literature
- Keith Chester: The Narrow Gauge Railways of Bosnia-Hercegovina . Stenvalls, Malmö 2006, ISBN 91-7266-166-6 .
- Keith Chester: Bosnia-Hercegovina Narrow Gauge Album . Stenvalls, Malmö 2010, ISBN 978-91-7266-176-9 .
- Keith Chester: Narrow Gauge Rails through Bosnia-Hercegovina . Mainline & Maritime Ltd, Upper Seagry 2015, ISBN 978-1-900340-39-7 .
- Werner Schiendl , Franz Gemeinböck: The railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1918–2016 . Edition Bahn im Film, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-9503096-7-6 .
