Borzhava narrow-gauge railway. Part One.

At the invitation of the organizers of the festival in honor of the 100th anniversary of Borzhava narrow gauge railway, known popularly as "Kushnytska Antsya" (Ukr), we went with like-minded people in the old locomotive depot of the town Berehovo, where the one of its last points was situated.



To tell the truth it was quite difficult to find the way to the old depot. Winding through the narrow streets, turning into inconspicuous corners, you get to the entrance of the territory, where such a plaque hangs.

Actually, a shuttle-holiday train left to the station Khmelnyk from this depot, located in a fairly secluded place on the bank of the river Irshava (people calls it Irshavka), which flows into the river Borzhava 100 meters downstream, under the railway bridge. The station is located in the fields under small hill in the forest between the villages of Khmelnyk, Velyki Komyaty and Shalanky. It is a junction center. One branch comes into it from Berehovo, one goes into the direction of Irshava, the second one goes to Vynohradovo. But now it is not about that.



Going through the whole territory of the depot, we got to the train, where we met a strict motor woman. I do not know what would make her strict in such holiday, apparently, a huge number of Hungarian visitors who disembarked from the bus and dashed to the cars like a hungry lynx clicking the shutters.



Thus here is the whole train "assembled". Three four-passenger hard cars (two on the cart) and one boxcar, as we called it - "colonial". In five minutes Hungarians will come and in another five minutes the locomotive will be given.



While people with the bowlers for bohrach loaded into cars, and carefully placed stockpiled in advance booze on the shelves, I walked through the territory and made photos. Here is, for example, an impasse with spare "wheels”.



And this is the main building of the depot (in the background, on the left). There are two tracks of dead cars and locomotives in front of it. And then the chief of Khmelnyk depot says at the tour at the station that there are 7 locomotives at the narrow gauge railway. Two of them are working (assembled from several), the remaining five - almost scrapped. The same situation is with cars. There are not more than a dozen of them. The financing is practically absent.

A blue locomotive - "TU7A", the old "TU2" of rust color is behind it. Its "working fellow" will carry the train in the direction of Khmelnyk in ten minutes. Two types of freight cars are behind “TU2”.



All passenger cars are "hard". Look at the picture and you will see the contours of the face which is more sad than hard…



And this is "TU7A" close-up. It stands on the last track near the entrance to the main building of the depot.



And here is our locomotive granted. "TU2-034." Somehow, with the inscription "Locomotive Depot CHOP". Now it is picked up, passengers jump in cars and the train moves.



Here is such a view of the locomotive in front. It is beautiful, I will not argue.



This is a cheerful conductor, Carlo Yanonych.



We decided to go in a freight car. There were a lot of people in the passenger car, and all the doors were plowing and chairs were installed in the "colonial" trailer. The car was packed by scratch audience. The half of them were Hungarians, some of whom behaved like rabid monkeys all the way, and the other part of the Russian-speaking population, who boozed, telling different kinds of stories and joked irrelevantly. One particularly highly inelegant citizen, similar to Theodore Dvinyatin, joked 150 times per an hour of trip. And it smiled a bit 1-2 times. Here is the picture where a stunned with the hubbub Hungarian man of the "cultural" looks in "salon" and becomes “amazed” a little, not understanding who behaves worse - jumping monkeys or drunk guys.



When we passed by the camp -gypsies were happy to see the train. Naked kids were waving with their hands, adults were smiling, and the dogs threw themselves under the wheels.



It should be noted that approximately the half of the way near tracks between Berehovo and Khmelnyk, was so overgrown that when the train passed, twigs lashed on the sides, often lashing inside. The fact that you can hide your eyes and ears, sitting with your legs hanging from the car, playing the game "Segitsek / Varjal" (“SOS/Wait”) brought some carload monkeys into a rage. They were screaming, shouting, running, whipping.



At the station in the region of Remeta, the train stopped, all dumped from the cars, and a small concert of folk group from the town Irshava was held. They sang, danced, talked, and went further. At that time I ran for a beer in a closed village shop. They had not beer. Nevertheless, I begged for a warm bottle of "Slavutych" and ran back. I painfully needed alcohol to sterilize the mind from silly jokes and the general situation in the car.



This is the most successful picture in my whole trip. I caught the angle. These are two most active monkeys in the car. Yes, and that's their face expressions. Super!

Do you see their badges? They were given them in the car. They were not removed until the evening. Here it is the difference in the mentality of nations. If you say us - "take a tie" – we necessarily put it in the pocket as soon as the control turns away. The same thing is with badges. All participants, even Hungarian old ladies, wore them and did not remove these deferential characters till the night.

Related links:

Borzhava narrow-gauge railway. Part Two.
Borzhava narrow-gauge railway. Part Three.

05.10.2012. 09:24

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