The CFF Viseu de Sus (Mocanita Viseu de Sus) 87-0032-0 seen at Novicior Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 09:14:08 Tags: Novicior 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

You may have noticed that benbe.hu did not get any updates in the past year. The reason for that is that I have moved to a new flat and I was doing most of the reconstruction work myself which did not leave me much free time. Things are getting better now so slowly updates may be coming back.

During the past two years of lifted and reissued lockdowns I managed to shoot photos at various railways, so there is more than enought material to upload to the site, the only limitation is going to be my free time. Please be patient, many more great railway travelogues are coming!

This journey is about the Forestry Railway at Viseu de Sus in the Vaser valley (Wassertalbahn). The sign behind the locomotive is a warning of a derailer in 100 m; most of the main line and some of the sidings are sectioned by derailers. This way unattended cars don't have a long run down the steady grade if anything bad happens but the upwards running train has to open and close a bunch of these on its way along the Vaser valley.

The CFF Viseu de Sus (Mocanita Viseu de Sus) 87-0032-0 seen at Novicior Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 09:16:16 Tags: Novicior 308 CFF diesel Románia kisvasút

Novicior used to have a short branch line up a side-valley of the Vas-ér (Vaser). Now only some short spurs remain. As the track is facing-point uphill it was fairly complicated to put a set of empty trucks on the spurs, especially since the passenger cars were directly behind the locomotive. It would have been simpler to set out the logging cars on the way back but the train was way too heavy anyway, so getting rid of all weight as soon as possible was a priority. The locomotive slipped and stalled a number of times until this point and as we got deeper into the mountains and the slope of the river became greater, even with reduced weight, it happened a number of times. There were points where we had to push back a little to gain momentum.

The CFF Viseu de Sus (Mocanita Viseu de Sus) 87-0032-0 seen at Novicior Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 09:18:13 Tags: Novicior 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

The tourist trains usually hauled by steam locomotives only go about halfway up the valley of the Vaser, but the mixed train of the logging company serves almost all the little logging camps up the mountains. This time we did not go all the way but still discovered a lot of new places along the route. The train brings supplies, loggers and empty trucks for loading at the various camps and also helps moving of equipment between camps. On the way down if there are loaded trucks it will pick them up andon Fridays many of the loggers will join the train down back to Viseu to join their families. You can see the end of the train, now reduced in length after setting out about one-third of the trucks at Novicior. The man in orange hi-vis is the tail-end brakeman, additional brakemen will get on the train as we continue our journey. They are riding on the narrow platform at some of the trucks, obviously there is no comfortable caboose provided.

A tunnel at CFF Viseu between Bardau and Botizu Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 09:44:29 Tags: 3 alagút Botizu Bardau 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

The steam excursion trains do not come this far in the valley but they still provide a spectacular railway experience. I recommend this old video of mine about them:

The CFF Viseu de Sus (Mocanita Viseu de Sus) 87-0032-0 seen at Faina Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 10:06:31 Tags: Faina 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

We picked up a few additional empty trucks as well as a flat car and a pair of ramps. We will load a logging vehicle and move it to another camp.

The CFF Viseu de Sus (Mocanita Viseu de Sus) 87-0032-0 seen at Miraj Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 10:43:54 Tags: Miraj 308 CFF diesel Románia kisvasút

Not only forest workers but hikers arrived with the train as well.

A CFF Viseu de Sus draisine type X626 bought second-hand from Austria seen at Gura Stevioara junction Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 11:28:28 Tags: Gura Stevioara Stevioara Miraj 308 CFF egyéb Románia

Some of the small railcars remained in Austria and still work on both standard and narrow gauge. They are present on many Romanian narrow-gauge railways, like Brad, Moldovita and Abrud, at the latter we have photographed one like this hauling a train instead of the sadly broken down steam locomotive. The Austrian Steyrtalbahn also uses them to haul trains, especially at photo charters, so that a steam-hauled freight train does not have to have a passenger car, the paying photographers ride behind and in the draisine instead.

This junction is the start point of a last, rather short branch to Stevioara station.

The CFF Viseu 87-0032-0 seen at Valea Babii Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 11:32:40 Tags: Valea Babii 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

The station's name is also written as Valea Babei at many places. This day our train did not go further, but sometimes they go as far as Comanu. Some route descriptions suggest that only the smaller locomotives like the three-axle Ecaterina go further up the route. They also help out on the branch to Stevioara but this day we did not have luck with that. To completely immerse in the railroad's atmosphere I recommend watching this video by Attila Moór:

Viseu de Sus Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 15:14:53 Tags: Felsõvisó CFF Viseu de Sus CFF 308 CFF diesel Románia kisvasút

Cristina, Ecaterina and the ex-CFR 87-0038-1 Faur diesel locomotive at Viseu de Sus. I have a very similar photo of the site from about twenty years ago, there are a lot of differences:

Viseu de Sus Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 15:18:57 Tags: Felsõvisó CFF Viseu de Sus CFF 308 CFF diesel Románia tehervonat kisvasút

Our narrow-gauge mixed train experience ended here, I would like to recommend two of my previous visits to the railway:

The CFR 64 1264-2 seen between Leordina Halta and Bocicoel Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:27 16:14:44 Tags: Leordina Halta Kisbocskó Bocicoel 307 CFR 65

The day after we continued taking photos on standard gauge, on the Salva - Sighetu Marmatiei railway. This photo was taken on the old, Hungarian local railway from Valea Visului to Borsa, to which the Romanians connected the railway to Salva at Viseu de Jos. The Southern Ramp of the railway has some great viaducts but due to the fog it was unreasonable to try photographing them at that time.

The CFR 64 1264-2 seen between Petrova and Viseu Bistra on the bridge above the Viseu river Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 10:04:32 Tags: Visó Viseu Bistra Petrova 307 CFR 65

During a previous, summer visit here I took a photo from the side of a passenger train hauled by two Sulzer locomotives here.

The CFR 64 1264-2 seen between Valea Visului and Bocicoi Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 10:44:12 Tags: Visóvölgy Valea Visului Lonka Lunca la Tisa 323 307 CFR 65

The railway between Campulung la Tisa and Valea Visului is double-gauge as the Soviet Union could not reach the Tatar-pass route from Transcarpathia otherwise. The railway was originally a MÁV mainline from Chop to Vorokhta over Khust, Sighet and Rakhiv where it connected to the Austrian State Railway's line over Stanislau (currently: Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine) to Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine). The broad-gauge line has been out of service for more than ten years and is impassable. The Ukrainian Railways (UZ) operates the railway from Chop to Solotvino and from Ivano Frankivsk to Rakhiv as stub-ended lines with significant passenger traffic.

The CFR 60 1197-2 seen at Micula station Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 13:55:15 Tags: Mikola Micula 190 314 CFR 60

The classic Sulzer brought a passenger train from Halmeu. That is a border station to Ukraine, broad-gauge runs to Korolevo and standard-gauge to Vynohradiv.

The CFR 82 0410-4 seen between General Gheorge Avramescu and Moftin Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 15:26:41 Tags: CFR 82

I'd like to recommend looking at my other Romanian railway photographs:

The MÁV 418 211 seen between Nyírbátor and Nyírbogát Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 16:30:50 Tags: Nyírbátor Nyírbogát 110 M41 (MÁV) dízelmozdony

As classical BDt cab cars are being scrapped we didn't miss an opportunity to photograph a shuttle train like this, even though the lights were really bad.

The MÁV 418 211 seen between Nyírbátor and Nyírbogát Photographed by: Takács Bence Captured at: 2020:01:28 16:31:01 Tags: Nyírbátor Nyírbogát 110 M41 (MÁV) dízelmozdony

The railway to Nyíregyháza is on the right.

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