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The first volume of "Wälder und Dampf" documented those forestry railways in Romania, which were still operating between 1987 and 1989. This aroused in the authors and among railway enthusiasts the wish to record the early history of the Romanian forestry railways. The idea of a second volume on this topic found particularly enthusiastic support in Romania.
The research work in this field proved to be particularly difficult, as very few records have survived. The greater part of the information presented in this book has been assembled by Tren Clubul Roman (TCR) and supplemented by details from former employees of the CFF, who, despite the passage of time, still have a remarkable good recall of many of the facts and facets of the forestry railways. Only in this way it was possible to establish many of the locomotives manufactures and number of identification, place names and track diagrams. The drawing of the track plans of long closed and lifted lines was one of the most wearisome in tasks of the research: the few sources available in Romania were old guide books, hiking maps and some hand drawn sketch maps, which also shoes forestry lines. |
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In this book we hope to correct some previous uncertainties, inaccurate information and the interpretations of some recent authors which often owe more to the fertility of their imagination than the facts. Thus we have not included any material, which seems to us to be of a dubious nature or not confirmed by two or more sources.
The locomotive list has been carefully compared with the original manufacturer lists. There is no complete list available for the locomotives built by Resita. These all carry different numbers, one for the boiler and one for the frames. A few of the boilers were built by "UMP" – Braila. For these locomotives we only give numbers confirmed by our own observations.
The photographs, almost all of which are previously unpublished, take the reader back to the earliest days of the Romanian forestry railways and recapture much of the romance of an age long disappeared.
Serban LACRITEANU (TCR – Bucharest)
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