Abandoned and dismantled piece by piece for scrap, Hunedoara’s narrow gauge railway system is on the edge of extincion. There are some works of railway art yet undestroyed three bridges and three tunnels. The first bridge was built in the 1890′s in a curve, and it was the first bridge built in a curve in Romnania. The second bridge was built in the 1890′s and replaced in 1989 to support a greater load, it is 114 meters long, has four legs and is in an “S” shape. The third bridge is at Govăjdia, 12 meters long and also was built in the 1890′s. The first tunnel is near Zlaşti, it is 747 meter long, crossing trough the mountain to Căţănaş it was built over a period of 5 years with primitive technology. The second tunnel is at Tulea, it is 42 meters long and was built in a curve. Both tunnels where designed by two italian engineers. The third tunnel 44 meters long was built in the 1860′s it is near Retişoara. These objectives would be a proud addition to every railway museum.
Fane Ghiorghi age 67, he lives in one of the buildigs near Govăjdia’s blast furnace, he owns a small grocery shop there. He came to Govăjdia in 1959 to get away from the famine in Botoşani county. Almost half a century have passed since he came here, he still mixes some Moldovean accent silables with the woodlanders (Pădureneşti) accent. This makes him verry funny. “I couldn’t survive there because the famine. I’ve first worked on the industrial railway. Today there is nothing left they took it all away! Oh my God!!…” The elder man continues to remember how nice it was to come from Hunedoara with the “mocăniţa” (narrow gauge train), passing trough the 747 meter long tunnel, viewing the beach forest’s autumn’s rusty-yellow colors, soon everything will be white again soon. Even so mr. Ghiorgi curses the scrap man: “It was a big mistake that they took it all away, big mistake!”
source: http://www.replicahd.ro/images/replica206/rep3.htm
Route description:
The line starts from the “small train station” located on a hill near the Hunedoara’s castle, passing near a tippler and passing a small valley bridged by the first curved railway bridge built in the 1890′s before arriving to the narrow gauge loco sheds. After the sheds the line continues to the 114 meter long “S” shaped viaduct over Zlaşti valley. The line continues clinging to the mountain side before arriving to the unloading stations at Talc-Dolomită company’s limeworks also known as “Canton 1″Zlasa (Zlaşti). After “Canton 1″ the line passes on a second curved railway bridge and continuing clinging to the hillside to “Canton 2″ here the ascending train had to wait on a separate track and let the descending train to continue its jurney. After Canton 2 the line continues to and trough a 747 meter long tunnel. After the tunnel the line continues clinging to the mountain side, in some places the line is at 50-70 meters above the road and arriving to “Canton 3″ Catana (Căţănaş) here passengers embarked and debarked the train. After canton 3 the line continues clinging to the mountain side and passing trough a 42 meter long curved tunnel and passing over three metallic bridges (12-15 meters long) and mounted on a cliff face before stopping for passengers at Tulea. The line than continues to Govăjdia, here at Govăjdia the line passes over another 10 meter long metallic bridge and crossing the main road and another 6 meter long metallic bridge and arriving at Govăjdia’s train station (11 km). The line continues up to Crăciuneasa another 3 km here they filled the crushed dolomite in the hopper cars from the quarry. Before 1970 the line continued another 2,5 km to Retişoara trough another 44 meter long curved tunnel and two metallic bridges. Here was the terminus and a loading station for the iron ore mined from Ghelari’s iron ore mines and was to be shipped to Hunedoara’s iron works. The whole line had aprox. 16 km. The first 2,5 km cutback of the line was after 1970 after they have abandoned Retişoara’s loading station. The passenger service ceased in 1990. The line was used only for dolomite, talcum and limestone transport. In 2000-2001 the Crăciuneasa terminus and the dolomite quarry was abandoned and the line between Crăciuneasa and Zlaşti was cut back by 11 km and scrapped along with most of the rolling stock. The last remaining 2,3 km line was used till autumn 2007 to carry limestone from the loading station near the castle to the limeworks near Zlaşti. From the summer of 2009 the whole line was removed and acrapped or sold. The last remaining rolling stock was purchased for refurbishment by a business man at Brad.
