The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves remote communities in southwestern Bulgaria. Can longtime riders — and young enthusiasts — keep it running?


Dressed in a floral-patterned tunic and baggy pants, her hair covered with a colorful head scarf, Sabie Djikova loaded a dozen bottles — 45 pounds’ worth
of milk — into a knapsack and a handmade bag, heaved them over her narrow shoulders and headed down the unpaved road toward the nearby train station.

At 65, she carries less than she used to. “When I was younger, I could carry up to 40 kilos,” she said — nearly 90 pounds.

Sabie and her family are part of a small community of Pomaks, Bulgarian-speaking Muslims who have lived for hundreds of years in a remote, mountainous region of the country. As with others in her village, Sabie owns
a few dairy cows, which she milks each day before dawn.

For more than 20 years, Sabie has made the daily trek from her village of Ablanitsa to the nearby Tsvetino station, where a small train then carries
her about 30 minutes to the market town of Velingrad. There, she goes house
to house delivering bottles of fresh, unpasteurized milk. Other Ablanitsa
women sell their products, including cheese, yogurt and honey, at the
Velingrad open market.

The little money the sellers make helps provide for their intergenerational families. None of their business would be possible without the train, which
is the most practical way for them to bring their goods to the market.

[...]

The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves 27 stations across the Rhodope
mountain range. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the railway has
a track with a width of 760 millimeters, or around 30 inches, which is
roughly half the width of a standard railroad track. (The narrow gauge is
good for climbing steep terrain and allows for tighter curves, lighter rail
and smaller tunnels — all of which are critical to its route through the mountains.)

At one time, dozens of narrow-gauge train lines crisscrossed Bulgaria,
helping to connect small villages with important trading towns. After the collapse of Communism, ridership declined as large numbers of villagers migrated out of the countryside. As the country suffered through economic crises, the Bulgarian National Railways disinvested in the narrow-gauge
lines.

Today, the Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway is the last of its kind in the
country. But its continued existence is in jeopardy. At one point the track conditions were so dire that the train traveled painfully slow. “You could walk beside it at the same speed or faster,” said Ivaylo Mehandzhiev, 27, a member of the nonprofit group Za Tesnolineikata, which means “For the Narrow Gauge.”

[continues]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/travel/bulgaria-narrow-gauge-railway.html

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Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves remote communities in southwestern Bulgaria. Can longtime riders — and young enthusiasts — keep it running?

Dressed in a floral-patterned tunic and baggy pants, her hair covered with a colorful head scarf, Sabie Djikova loaded a dozen bottles — 45 pounds’ worth
of milk — into a knapsack and a handmade bag, heaved them over her narrow shoulders and headed down the unpaved road toward the nearby train station.

At 65, she carries less than she used to. “When I was younger, I could carry
up to 40 kilos,” she said — nearly 90 pounds.

Sabie and her family are part of a small community of Pomaks, Bulgarian-speaking Muslims who have lived for hundreds of years in a remote, mountainous region of the country. As with others in her village, Sabie owns a few dairy cows, which she milks each day before dawn.

For more than 20 years, Sabie has made the daily trek from her village of Ablanitsa to the nearby Tsvetino station, where a small train then carries her about 30 minutes to the market town of Velingrad. There, she goes house to house delivering bottles of fresh, unpasteurized milk. Other Ablanitsa women sell their products, including cheese, yogurt and honey, at the Velingrad open market.

The little money the sellers make helps provide for their intergenerational families. None of their business would be possible without the train, which is the most practical way for them to bring their goods to the market.

[...]

The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves 27 stations across the Rhodope mountain range. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the railway has a track with a width of 760 millimeters, or around 30 inches, which is roughly half the width of a standard railroad track. (The narrow gauge is good for climbing steep terrain and allows for tighter curves, lighter rail and smaller tunnels — all of which are critical to its route through the mountains.)

At one time, dozens of narrow-gauge train lines crisscrossed Bulgaria, helping to connect small villages with important trading towns. After the collapse of Communism, ridership declined as large numbers of villagers migrated out of the countryside. As the country suffered through economic crises, the Bulgarian National Railways disinvested in the narrow-gauge lines.

Today, the Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway is the last of its kind in the country. But its continued existence is in jeopardy. At one point the track conditions were so dire that the train traveled painfully slow. “You could walk beside it at the same speed or faster,” said Ivaylo Mehandzhiev, 27, a member of the nonprofit group Za Tesnolineikata, which means “For the Narrow
Gauge.”

[continues]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/travel/bulgaria-narrow-gauge-railway.html

My pics from a visit in September 2019. Our private charter train used the line's solitary working steam loco, which gets rarely gets out these days: <https://www.flickr.com/photos/recliner/albums/72157711110839806>

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Theo schrieb am Montag, 15. November 2021 um 22:01:03 UTC+1:

The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves remote communities in southwestern Bulgaria. Can longtime riders — and young enthusiasts — keep it running?

Dressed in a floral-patterned tunic and baggy pants, her hair covered with a colorful head scarf, Sabie Djikova loaded a dozen bottles — 45 pounds’ worth
of milk — into a knapsack and a handmade bag, heaved them over her narrow shoulders and headed down the unpaved road toward the nearby train station.

At 65, she carries less than she used to. “When I was younger, I could carry
up to 40 kilos,” she said — nearly 90 pounds.

Sabie and her family are part of a small community of Pomaks, Bulgarian-speaking Muslims who have lived for hundreds of years in a remote, mountainous region of the country. As with others in her village, Sabie owns a few dairy cows, which she milks each day before dawn.

For more than 20 years, Sabie has made the daily trek from her village of Ablanitsa to the nearby Tsvetino station, where a small train then carries her about 30 minutes to the market town of Velingrad.

Same is reported for Ukrainian buses running once per week on market days.

There, she goes house
to house delivering bottles of fresh, unpasteurized milk. Other Ablanitsa women sell their products, including cheese, yogurt and honey, at the Velingrad open market.

The little money the sellers make helps provide for their intergenerational families. None of their business would be possible without the train, which is the most practical way for them to bring their goods to the market.

[...]

The Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway serves 27 stations across the Rhodope mountain range. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the railway has a track with a width of 760 millimeters, or around 30 inches, which is roughly half the width of a standard railroad track. (The narrow gauge is good for climbing steep terrain and allows for tighter curves, lighter rail and smaller tunnels — all of which are critical to its route through the mountains.)

We use to call that „Bosnian“ gauge here, as it was used by Austria
(and, by the way, not only in Bosnia but even in Austria itself).

At one time, dozens of narrow-gauge train lines crisscrossed Bulgaria, helping to connect small villages with important trading towns.

They didn't care that much about people living there but about
goods and maybe troops, I guess.

After the
collapse of Communism, ridership declined as large numbers of villagers migrated out of the countryside.

Smaller factories, if any, were closed dow.n

As the country suffered through economic
crises, the Bulgarian National Railways disinvested in the narrow-gauge lines.

Today, the Rhodope Narrow-Gauge Railway is the last of its kind in the country. But its continued existence is in jeopardy. At one point the track conditions were so dire that the train traveled painfully slow. “You could walk beside it at the same speed or faster,” said Ivaylo Mehandzhiev

That's bad with roads upgraded to highway standards.

Regards, ULF

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