Saturday, February 26, 2011

Dej Triaj Locomotives Repainted


In August 2010, after a year has passed since my last visit, I went again to see the locomotives in the Dej Triaj train depot. I had two nice surprises:
1. A new restored steam locomotive, CFR 150.1123.
2. All the steamers have been repainted.

Thanks to Mr. Florin Nan and his team, the locos are well taken care of. Let them have our deepest gratitude for that!

In the following images you can see several steam locomotives before and after the repainting. The images on the left have been taken in August 2009 and the images on the right in August 2010.














Friday, February 25, 2011

CFR 150.1123 at Dej Triaj Depot



After the end of World War II, Romania received from the Soviet Union 30 German locomotives as war prey. They were engines of the DR 42, DR 44, DR 50 and DR 52 classes. As others, most of them arrived to Romania from Austria between 1948 and 1958 to be repaired and transformed to fit the broad gauge of the Russian railway lines at the railway workshops in Bucuresti and Iasi. However, these 30 engines were given by the Soviet Union to CFR, because they had severe damages or simply because the Russians were not interested in running steam locomotives with such technical characteristics on their lines. 23 of these locomotives belonged to class DR 50 and DR 52. CFR enlisted them in its inventory with ID numbers ranging from 150.1101 to 150.1123. Four engines of class DR 50 received the IDs CFR 150.1113 - CFR 150.1116. The rest of 19 locomotives originally belonged to class BR 52, which was derived from the class DR 50 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn during the war by the means of simplification, making the locomotive as cheap as possible (they've built over 7000 pieces in 4 years!). This also meant that the life expectation of these locomotives was not high, still some of them have functioned on the lines of CFR for over 40 years. All except one of the locos that came from the DR 52 series, were equiped with tenders of type 2'2'T32 (wannentender). During the reparation in the CFR workshops, the locomotives have been prived of their smoke deflectors, the only one that kept them until today is CFR 150.1105 in the Sibiu steam locomotive museum.


The last one of these steamers was retired by CFR in 1989, after 10 years from its last technical inspection, after which it has rolled uninspected for 522.837 kilometers. It is no other than CFR 150.1123, the last from its series, which has done service in Hungary, belonged to the Soviet Union and finally ran on the Romanian lines. After its retirement it has arrived in 1996 to Dej, where it has been left to rust for several years. Here are a few pictures in which you can see in what a sad state it got by 2009:


Luckily, unlike so many CFR steam locomotives, 150.1123 has escaped the scrapyard and by the summer of 2010 it has been salvaged and restored by a handful of railway enthusiasts, led by Mr. Florin Nan. He and his team have saved several Romanian steam locomotives, they have nicely restored them and they are now all on display in the Dej Triaj train depot. For this they deserve great respect, for they are the few who dedicate their time and effort to saving such precious pieces of Romanian railway history, standing against the general tendency of destroying old steam locomotives.


Facts:
ID: CFR 150.1123 (ex DR 150.1127)
Wheel arrangement: 2-10-0
Built: 1944
Builder: Skoda (Pilsen)
Top speed: 80 km/h
Gauge: Standard (1435 mm)
Location: Dej Triaj (train depot)


Links:

Credits:
Much of the information in this article has been taken from the book "Istoricul tractiunii feroviare din Romania" by Serban Lacriteanu and Ilie Popescu. Thank you!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

CFR 764.059 in the Roman Gardens at Satu Mare



There were a total of 68 pieces of 760 mm narrow gauge steam locomotives in the 764.000 series used by CFR. These small locos mostly ran on forestry lines or used for industrial purposes. Well adapted for their purpose and resistant, a few are still working at Viseu de Sus, after so many years of exploitation.
One of these locos is CFR 764.059, which is not functional anymore, but is on display in the Roman Gardens (Ro: Gradina Romei, hu: Kossuth Kert) at Satu Mare in Romania. A little different from the usual representatives of the 764.000 series, it's one of the 9 engines bought from Chrzanow, Poland in 1949 (764.051 - 764.059).


Saturday, February 12, 2011

CFR 764.410 at Satu Mare





Facts:
ID: CFR 764.410
Wheel arrangement: 0-8-0T
Built: 1958
Builder: "Uzinele Domeniilor" (Resita)
Top speed: 30 km/h
Gauge: 760 mm
Location: Satu Mare

The loco's exact location is this:

Links:

A Few Artistic Pictures


CFR 060-DA-001

CFR 060-DA-001


CFR 230.299

CFR 230.299


CFR 151.002 "Malaxa"

CFR 151.002 "Malaxa"


CFR 231.050

CFR 231.050


CFR 764.15X

CFR 764.15X


CFR Snow Plow

CFR snow plow


CFR 324.951

CFR 324.951


CFR 150.105

CFR 150.105


CFR 764.357

CFR 764.357

Thursday, February 10, 2011

CFR 060-DA-001



If you visit the Dej Triaj locomotive depot (Romania), among many beautiful CFR steam locomotives, you will also be able to admire the very first of the famous LDE 2100 Romanian diesel locomotives, the CFR 060-DA-001. Its story begins back in 1956, when CFR placed an order to Swiss locomotive builders for a 2100 HP diesel locomotive with Co-Co wheel arrangement. Three companies teamed up to deliver the loco: Sulzer Winterthur (which built the diesel engine), BBC Baden (which built the electric equipment) and SLM Winterthur (which created the mechanical structure and executed the overall assembling). Six first such locomotives were assembled (entirely in Switzerland) in 1959 and they soon arrived to Romania. Afterwards the building technology was transfered to Electroputere Craiova, where thousands of such locomotives were built in the following years. They are used by CFR ever since with great success.
In 2008, CFR 060-DA-001, the first of the legendary CFR diesel locomotives, was restored to its original technical state and livery and exhibited at the Railway Days in Bucharest.

Facts:
ID: CFR 060-DA-001
Wheel arrangement: Co-Co
Wheel diameter: 1100 mm
Built: 1959
Builder: Sulzer Winthertur, BBC Baden, SLM Winterthur
Top speed: 100 km/h
Gauge: Standard (1435 mm)
Power: 2100 HP (1546 kW)
Weight: 117t
Length: 17000 mm
Location: Dej Triaj, Romania (depot)

Links:


Sunday, February 6, 2011

CFR 764.357 in Orastie



In the summer of 2010 I was travelling through Hunedoara County in Romania. As I was driving on the Romanian national road no.7 (DN7) through the town of Orastie, I suddenly noticed a small steam locomotive painted in bright colors, exhibited right next to the road. It caught my attention, so I stopped and took some pictures of it. The narrow gauge (760 mm) loco looked very nice, but it also raised some questions in me as it had no ID plates. From the looks of it I knew that it belonged to the 764.000 series and it was also clear that it had been recently restored. The people who rescued it from being dismembered and melted, as so many other Romanian steam locomotives, have chosen to paint it in an unusual but appealing red color, which is not representative for its kind at all, as the CFR standard color scheme is quite different. Another strange thing about it was the fact that its coupling buffers were placed asymmetrically.





Recently I have done some digging on the Internet and found some information about the small steamer. It appears that it had been built in 1950 by Uzinele "23 August" in Bucharest based on a design by Schwartzkopf. The locomotives of its kind were not very kind to the tracks, so they were mainly used for shunting on forestry lines. This particular steam locomotive was used by the Orastie forestry company. The reason for the asymmetrically placed coupling buffers is that it used to pull not only narrow gauge train cars, but also some that had their coupling buffers placed at normal distance, like standard gauge train cars. After being taken out of usage, the loco was left to rust for a long time. But now the forestry company (IFET Orastie) rescued it, restored it and exhibited it near the DN7 road, for everybody to admire. It has even been fitted with decorative light tubes that make it visible at night.




Facts:
ID: CFR 764.357
Wheel arrangement: 0-8-0T
Built: 1950
Builder: Uzinele "23 August" (Bucuresti)
Top speed: Most likely 30 km/h
Gauge: 760 mm
Location: Orastie, Romania (near the DN7 road)


Links: