Photographs by Paula NEAMTU / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

However, the Oravita town is famous not only for the first mountain railroad in Romania, dating back in 1863, but also for a whole series of other such firsts. Besides the first theatre that was established here as early as in 1817, Oravita also had the first train station (equipped with an elevator), the first natural pharmacy (1793), the first vocational mountain school (1729) and the first exhibition ever devoted in Romania to industry and trade (1869).

The first mountain railway in Romania, Oravita-Anina, is also known under the name of Banat Semmering, taking after the famous Semmering train route in Austria. It is still considered to this day to be a work of art and a masterpiece in the field of rail construction, with no less than 14 tunnels having been carved into the hard rock of the mountain, overcoming an altitude difference of 340 metres. The constructors needed to carve into the stone for a distance of a total 21 kilometres, with the retaining walls also summing a long 10 kilometres.

Some of the curves measure a 114-metre curvature radius, compared with 150 the usual value. This railway represents a true engineering masterpiece, unique in Romania and in south-east Europe. In fact, the great art of its construction relies in the fact that its average gradient of 14 per thousand.

Despite an aerial distance of only 15 kilometres between Oravita and Anina, the railway measures 33.4 kilometres, more than double that is. However, the beauty of the landscape along the route takes the traveler’s breath away, be it in the summertime or the winter.

One of the tunnels bears the name of architect Johann Ludwig Dier Dollhoff, who blamed himself for one of the first failures in carving the tunnel at Garliste when he saw that, in the end, the two galleries they were carving failed to meet, because of a vertical deviation of almost three metres, which in the end led him to suicide. More precisely, he jumped off a cliff, from one of the viaducts, as according to University Professor Dr. Gheorghe Popovici from the Eftimie Murgu University of Resita, as he wrote in his book ‘Through the Banat Mountains — Travel Guide.’

‘Any passenger who travels through the mountains in Banat should take the train from Oravita to Anina, at least once in a lifetime. It will be for the first time when he/she will want that his/hers travel by train would never end. The beauty of the landscape along the entire route to which it adds the emotion given by the numerous surprises that he/she encounters with almost every new kilometre done: tunnels carved into stone, viaducts built across the deep valleys and narrow crossings through the mountain, also built by men, opening up to the sky. Everything built in stone with the cleverness of the mind and the hand of the skilled workers in cutting the limestone, since the dynamite was yet to be invented at that time and they didn’t use cranes back then either,’ said Gheorghe Popovici.

Today, the leadership of the Caras-Severin County Council is in search for a solution to rebuild the Oravita-Anina railway and have it function again at its best. Thus, the County Council President, Sorin Frunzaverde, has recently discussed the matter with the representatives of the Timisoara branch of the National Railway Company (CFR) — Infrastructure and Passengers, in order to identify a way to access European funds. The President of the County Council stated that it is natural for such a partnership between institutions to exist, for the purpose of accessing European funds.

‘It is natural that this institution, the County Council that is, to make all the efforts to save this masterpiece that belongs to the Banat historical heritage,’ said Sorin Frunzaverde.

The representatives of the CFR say that they have no intention to stop traffic on the Oravita-Anina segment.

Today, the train that travels on this route is made of a Romanian Diesel electronic locomotive that was especially built for the Oravita-Anina railroad and two second class uncompartmented cars, with wooden benches made in 1914. A third car of this type is currently waiting to be repaired at the Oravita Car Overhaul.

The engine is different from the other wagons, through the fact that from the four axes that it has the first and last one are inclined toward the right and toward the left respectively, which allows it to enter such curve with smaller radius. The cars are designed to carry passengers and are also equipped with a rotation device. The basic rule is that two of the four axes should be always with their brakes on.

Although the cars have been rebuilt many times, they did not suffer any chance on neither or outside or the inside. The heating is done with steam, with an oven for that purpose being located in the very middle of the car. The average speed of the train is 17 km per hour, which means that train needs around two hours to travel between Oravita and Anina. Besides this train, there is also a track car that travels on the same route, pushing an uncovered freight car, a platform with two seats for passenger transport, which is meant for tourists visiting the area.AGERPRES