The trip to Moldovita was an adventure in itself. Located in the North-Eastern part of Romania the line has been recently reconstructed to connect the depot with the upper part of the forest.

During the last few years the line has been discontinuous and only 6 kilometers were open for steam trains. Now the lower part of the line is connected to the upper part in Argel and special steam train trips can be organized to the forest. We arrived in Moldovita after a difficult car trip from Viseu caused by the heavy snow on the road in Prislop Pass. Since in Moldovita it had been snowing for three days, the line was covered in spite of all continuous and hard efforts local people kept making to clean up the track. The line is now under the administration of CFI Company from Criscior and its manager, Georg Hocevar, was seriously involved in making this line and train running. In some parts the Krauss locomotive was able to pass through the snow while in some parts a small diesel engine helped the train. When this was not possible six hard working men cleared the line by shovel for more than three kilometers. We stopped to a point where the snow was about 30 centimeters high and any manual efforts would have been too strenuous.

All these made the trip something really special and each member of the group appreciated the great efforts made by Mr. Hocevar and his team. As you can see in this short film both man and the machine worked very hard for this special trip. And what a special trip it was!

Photo (c) Daniel Secarescu | www.mocanita.ro