Old Electric Locomotive at Busteni Train Station

  The third train station that I visited in the spring of 2011 in the Prahova Valley, that had a full size locomotive exhibited next to it was the station of Busteni. At Sinaia I have seen the CFR 230.039 steam locomotive and the permanent miniature railroad exhibition. At Predeal I have had the chance to take a few shots of the CFR 50.497 steamer. Busteni had reserved its own surprise for me, but I must say it was a little different from the others. It was a small and visibly very old electric locomotive exhibited right next to the station building, together with a small flat train car. The loco and the car were both nicely restored ad they were placed on a narrow gauge (700 mm) piece of track. The 700 mm gauge was used widely in Romania for industrial purposes and the small car behind the locomotive also had an industrial feel but at the moment I did not know anything about the locomotive or the car. However, I have noticed that it looked a lot like the electric locomotive exhibited in the Dej Triaj collection.

  When I looked up the little electric locomotive on the web I found out that it had quite an interesting history and it played a very important part in the existence itself of the town of Busteni itself. It seems that the small mountain town was originally built around the wood industry, to be more specific, around the industry of producing paper. In 1882 the two sons of a Lutheran priest who lived in the nearby town of Rasnov, Carol and Samuel Schiel have realized the potential value of the immense quantity of living wood found in the area and have founded founded a paper mill. The demand for cellulose and paper was high and the business had quickly flourished. The wood had been brought down from the mountains with a funicular (cliff railway), but that was not enough to efficiently transport the materials, so in a matter of a few years, in 1894 the first industrial railway of the Prahova Valley had been constructed. It was a narrow gauge (700 mm) line of only 6.2 km length used to transport logs. At the beginning steam locomotives were used to pull the trains, but the owners were concerned about the fire hazard, so shortly after, in 1899, the people of Busteni became acquainted with a new type of locomotive, one that probably seemed a miracle at the time, an electric one. It was built by the Orenstein & Koppel factories from Berlin and it was used for a very long time to transport wood and paper.

  Unfortunately the story of the paper mill does not have a happy ending. By 1928 most of the forest had been cut and the business started to decline. In 1948 it was all nationalized and in 1966 the funicular and the whole railway line was abandoned. A small portion of it, which linked the two main parts of the factory located on the two sides of the main road was kept until about 2003. That is when the electric train worked for the last time. The story of the small electric locomotive ends in an equally sad manner. In 1990 it was transported to Bucuresti, from where it disappeared (probably stolen, sold or melted) and nobody knows anything about it since then.

  Luckily the first electric locomotive bought by the Schiel brothers was not the only one. In 1907 and 1913 they have purchased two more similar locos from AEG Berlin. The youngest one is the electric locomotive that is currently exhibited at the Busteni train station. It was placed there at the end of 2010, during the celebration of 50 years since the first standard gauge electrified railway section was built in Romania, between Brasov and Predeal. The loco was build on the 1st of July, 1913 in Berlin. with a length of 5.7 m, it weghts just 3.5 tons. It works with 250V and it generates 50 HP. It too was abandoned for a while. You can see a picture of it rusting in the yard of the paper mill here. But at least the story of this locomotive has a happy ending, as it has been restored and is now exhibited and can be admired and photographed at the Busteni train station, here:

  I have found a good video which illustrates the way the small electric locomotives worked inside the paper mill:

Facts:
ID: Unknown
Wheel arrangement: Bo-Bo
Wheel diameter: 730 mm
Length: 5700 mm
Width: 1200 mm
Weight: 3.5 t
Voltage: 250V
Power: 50 HP
Gauge: 700 mm
Location: Busteni, Romania (railway station)

Links:
The history of Busteni, of the paper mill and of the narrow gauge railway at www.historia.ro
The history of the Busteni paper mill at www.railnet.ro
The electric locomotives of the Busteni paper mill at forum.transira.ro
Electric locomotive "1" at Dej Triaj train depot

Permanent Miniature Railroad Exhibition at Sinaia Train Station - The Winter Town

Previous part: The summer countryside

  The final part of the permanent miniature railroad exhibition hosted in the Sinaia train station is the snow-covered small winter town with its train station and surroundings. Although smaller than the summer section, it too is full of carefully planned details. Notice for example how Santa is looking down the chimney of the train station, the snowy steam locomotive, the skating rink and the ski run.

Permanent Miniature Railroad Exhibition at Sinaia Train Station - The Summer Countryside

Previous part: The city

Next part: The winter town

Permanent Miniature Railroad Exhibition at Sinaia Train Station - The City

Previous part: The roundhouse

Next part: The summer countryside

Permanent Miniature Railroad Exhibition at Sinaia Train Station - The Roundhouse

During a recent trip I visited Sinaia, a quiet small town in the center of Romania, located in a spectacular mountain region. It offers a lot to see to its visitors, for example the Peles castle. As a fan of steam locomotives, I went to the train station because I knew that CFR 230.039 is located there and I hoped to take some photos.  But, as I soon found out, this small train station has a great surprise for the railroad modeling fans too: it hosts a permanent miniature (H0) train exhibition. The entrance fee is quite low (somewhat more than 1 Euro) and the featured models and the whole setup is great. I will try to present it in this post and the ones which will follow...

The exhibition is divided into two main themes: the city with the summer countryside and the winter station with its surroundings. The summer and winter parts are cleverly separated by high mountains and tunnels. Both of them contain lots of static models and moving elements, not just trains, but also "animated" figures. For example at the roundhouse there is a guy welding a steam locomotive. Another one in the countryside is cutting the grass.

The first area of the exhibition that caught my attention was the roundhouse and the turntable, with lots of static steam locomotives in it:

Next part: The city

MÁV 275.118 at the Train Station in Cegléd, Hungary

After the First World War, MÁV needed to update its repertoire of steam locomotives. On the main lines two major classes were introduced: 328 and 424. On the secondary lines there was a need for a smaller, lighter type of steam locomotive and so was the class 22 born. Designed and built by MÁVAG, the first 5 locomotives of the 22.000 series saw the light in 1928. After a short period, seeing that these locos were a success, MÁVAG has ordered another 20 pieces, but this time the suspension was redesigned and improved. In 1929 a third order was placed and another set of class 22 locomotives were produced, with the boiler pressure increased from 13 to 14 atm. In the same year another set of 26 locomotives were built with even more improvements. In 1930 15 and in 1931 12 more such steam locomotives were assembled and so the total number of locomotives in the 22.000 series built for MÁV was 148. Also, there were 13 pieces built for Yugoslavia by MÁVAG, after which Yugoslavia has purchased the blueprints and they've built another 22 pieces of their own.

In 1956 the 22.000 series was renamed to 275.00. MÁV 275.118 is a fine example of the 275.000 (ex 22.000) series. It is currently exhibited in the front of the Cegléd train station, where many such steam locomotives used to do service in the steam age (see below).

Facts:

ID: MÁV 275.118

Wheel arrangement: 2-4-2T

Built: 1938

Builder: MÁVAG (Budapest)

Length: 8670/8860 mm

Height: 3865 mm

Width: 3000 mm

Leading wheel diameter: 875 mm

Driving wheel diameter: 1220 mm

Trailing wheel diameter: 875 mm

Empty weight: 28.55 t

Service weight: 35.9 t

Axle load: 10.1 t

Top speed: 65 km/h

Boiler pressure: 13/14 atm

Power: 290 HP (230.7 kW)

Gauge: Standard (1435 mm)

Location: Cegléd, Hungary (train station)

Links:

MÁV 275.118 at www.steamlocomotive.info

MÁV class 22 at Wikipedia