A WORD about these high-wheeled, four-cylinder Yugoslav Prairies is in order. They are graceful machines, mounted on drivers a shade over 6 feet in diameter, and fitted with fragile-looking spoked wheels from pilot truck to tender. They weigh a bare 69 tons, which is a good deal less than any United States or Canadian 2-6-2. A boiler as straight as a rifle barrel, an unadorned and slightly conical smokebox front, and an open cab give them a decidedly British air. They seemed to be everywhere at Nis. Locals and international expresses alike had them; even the venerable SimplonOrient Express was entrusted to one. The exceptional longevity of the JZ Prairies (they were originally built during 1912-1923 for the Serbian State Railways) in mainline express traffic is due to weight restrictions on the routes to the Greek and Bulgarian borders, a situation now being resolved by Electro-Motive's G16's. I caught a pair of these 01-class 2-6-2's doubleheading the northbound Athens-Ostend Tauern Express through FREIGHT traffic moves behind sturdy power. A good case in point was the wartime-vintage German-built 2-10-0 that I photographed hammering eastward out of Nis with a solid block of white German Federal reefers. Trim little smoke deflectors, a raked-in cab design, and a massive welded roundbottom tender made it a particularly businesslike locomotive. It was a 33class Decapod weighing 84 tons and equipped with 55-inch drivers. I caught another making good time southbound with hoppers near Karlovac, Croatia, on the Zagreb-Rijeka line. THE Istrian Peninsula, now the westernmost end of Yugoslavia, passed from Austrian to Italian hands at the end of World War I despite its predominantly Yugoslavian population. Near the close of World War II, however, Marshal Tito's partisans managed to boot the Fascist troops out, an accomplishment formally recognized in the postwar boundary reshuffle. Yugoslavia acquired, along with nearly 3000 square miles of new territory, the important seaport of Fiume (now Rijeka), a string of fashionable Adriatic resorts, and a considerable mileage of railway that had been electrified by the Italians between wars. This is why I found big steeple-cab electrics - still finished in the mustard yellow colors of the Italian State Railways - pushing their pantographs along 3000-volt D.C. catenary on the Yugoslav Railways. A back-road excursion into the Alps east of Rijeka, where the Yugoslavs have extended catenary, provided a look at some exceptional mountain electric railroading. The track, precisely aligned and immaculately ballasted, and followed by steel-supported, taut-as-a-bowstring catenary, climbed gracefully in sweeping reverse curves. The big 12-wheeled electrics came gliding up through the mountain meadows and forests on the 2 per cent or better. SPLIT is the starting point for an isolated 25 miles of 2-foot 6-inch gauge track that goes snaking up into the Dinaric Alps to a place called Sinj. The track has never seen a diesel or much of anything else that could be considered remotely modern. The afternoon train, a nine-car mixture of wood-bench European-style wooden four-wheel coaches and double-truck cars of vaguely Coloradoan appearance, departed from a station called Split Predgrade out on the edge of town near the freight yards. Instead of having the usual European buffers, the equipment was fitted with a sort of link-and-pin coupler, plus a pair of screw couplings one on each side. A timecard that allowed a full 2 hours 8 minutes for the journey to Sinj and the brace of 0-8-2's that backed down on the train suggested some tough railroading ahead. I was not disappointed. For reasons understandable only to a Yugoslavian, the 0-8-2's (curious fat-boilered little machines with very, very Continental cabs with neatly lidded oval windows in front and tall stacks topped by squared-off cabbagehead spark arrestors) came to life exactly 15 minutes ahead of schedule, pulled the train smartly out of the station, and came to a halt at the yard limits to await the scheduled departure time while late-arriving passengers hurried through the yard from the depot. Then, promptly at 2:30, we were off in earnest. The assault of the 0-8-2's on the Dinaric Alps was unfaltering. Hurling a furious exhaust of smudgy soft coal smoke and cinders into the brilliant Dalmation sky, they slammed into one curve after another, plunged through horseshoe-shaped tunnels, then leapt across a deep gorge on graceful stone arches. My fellow passengers in the lead coach were quite helpful, pointing out scenes for my camera. Everyone was most friendly except one very unfriendly Communist policeman, riding up to Sinj, who didn't care at all for my looks or activities. For three hours (it seemed like three days) I sat in the police station at Sinj while Marshal Tito and other brass glared down at me from large photographs on the wall. My captors made a few desultory phone calls, then settled down to an endless series of chess matches. My failure to have my passport with me hadn't served to improve the situation. Finally, the local high school language teacher appeared to act as interpreter, suitoble explanations were made, and I was released after a round of handshaking with the police force. DUBROVNIK, 140 miles down the coast from Split, was delightful. Mountains plunging down into the Adriatic Sea give it an incomparable setting. The heart of the city is contained within the walls of a medieval fortress. Bright yellow trolleys towing gay open trailers transport throngs of summer visitors. The narrow-gauge (2-foot 6-inch) line to the interior departs Dubrovnik in as dramatic a fashion as I've ever seen, climbing into the mountains along the south wall of a fjordlike inlet on a cliff-hanging track that reminded me of William H. Jackson's classic photograph of the D&RG in the canyon of the River of Lost Souls. It was a fine setting for photos of No. 3, the morning express to Sarajevo (168 miles from Dobrovnik scheduled in 10 hours 10 minutes), which came storming up out of the waterfront depot in the charge of No. 83-110, a 36-ton 0-8-2, and No. 85-003, a 49-ton 2-8-2. WHAT A. E. Durrant calls Europe's nearest equivalent to our Cajon Pass is the route between Split and Knin. I arrived in Split expecting to discover tall 4-8-0's heading the frequent passenger schedules and Hungarianbuilt 2-6-6-0 Mallets hoisting freight traffic over the mountains but those widely traveled La Grange salesmen had got there first. Even before I caught sight of the diesels it was possible to identify them by the familiar deep-throated honk of their air horns and by that peculiar chant that comes only from a GM V-16 winding up. Electro-Motive delivered 20 of these good-looking hood units (done up in dark green and yellow) in January and February 1960, and a second order for 57 was destined to start being unloaded in late 1960. Designated the GI6, the C-C units are export versions of our GP9 - which can't go abroad itself because it's too high, heavy, and wide. The G16 rides on six axles instead of four, is a foot narrower by virtue of trimming running board widths, and stands less than 13 feet high (compared with 15 feet for the Geep). Reduction in height was accomplished by an engineroom rearrangement, mainly in the cooling system. The Geep's two A.C. motor-driven fans and radiators (which are conveniently located in the roof) were replaced in the G16 by a single mechanically driven fan placed ahead of the engine with a radiator group directly overhead. Extra space required for this modified cooling system resulted in a carbody over 10 feet longer than a Geep's. The over-all length disparity was held to less than 5 feet, however, by extending the G16 carbody a few inches beyond the end sills, thus eliminating the end platforms found on Geeps. A G16's truck can be modified for any track gauge from meter to 5 foot 6 inch; four gear ratios are offered; there's space available in the short hood for installation of both a steam generator and dynamic braking; and vacuum brakes and nonautomatic couplings can be applied. Yugoslav Railways' G16's weigh in at 114 tons, develop 68,400 pounds starting tractive effort, are geared for a top speed of 70 or 77 mph. Down on the Adriatic coast I found one nosing into Split through a dual-gauged tunnel (shared with the 2-foot 6-inch gauge line from Split to Sinj which then heads off on its own route) with train 1302 from Zagreb. |