The Transylvanian Mining Railway was a local interest narrow-gauge (760mm gauge) railway which was the first mining railway in Transylvania. This railway was built to ease the transportation of the iron ore mined from the iron ore mines from Ghelari to the blast furnace in Govăjdia and the ironworks from Hunedoara. This railway was also known as the "Hunedoara-Ghelari Local Interest Railway", "CFI Hunedoara", "Mocănița Hunedoara", "Calea Ferată Minieră Ardeleană", "Erdélyi Bányavasút" in Hungarian. The line was long from Hunedoara to Govăjdia and another from Govăjdia to the Retișoara terminus. This line was used by mixed trains that carried both iron ore and passengers from Ghelari to Govăjdia and Hunedoara's ironworks. They also transported dolomite and limestone from the limestone quarries near Govăjdia to the ironworks.
Line history
Earlier the iron ore transport from the mines in Ghelari to the chutes and tipplers of the ironworks from Govăjdia was done by horses with two baskets attached on each side or other hired carriers until the demand and the price for the transported iron ore rose in 1859 from 18.6 Fillér/1 quintal to 53.6 Fillér/1 quintal of transported iron ore. Because of the rising expenses for the transportation of iron ore, the administration was forced to replace the transport system.
In 1859 they started digging a -long tunnel from the main mine in Ghelari to Retișoara's valley which was completed in 1866 at a cost of 111,768 Krones and 50 Fillérs. Meanwhile, they built a -long, 633 mm gauge railway specially for horse-drawn ore cars. At the end of the line they built a 160-metre-long chute where they dumped the iron ore to the Retișoara's valley floor which was lower than the level of the tunnel's exit. After the ore was dumped down the chute, the carriers transported the ore to the Govăjdia Blast Furnace which was away.
Thanks to these investments they have managed to lower the prices for the transported ore from 30 Fillérs to 10 Fillérs, but the ironworks from Govăjdia received less iron ore because the transporters came up with new demands which rushed the construction of the railway to the blast furnace in Govăjdia.
The altitude difference between the "Lukács László" mining face from the central mine in Ghelari and the throat of the blast furnace in Govăjdia was ; to compensate they built a 5,120-metre-long, 633 mm gauge, divided in three sections by the chutes from Nădrab and Retișoara at a total cost of 20,000 Krones. Later they built two water-driven jaw crushers for the iron ore. The last section of the Retișoara-Govăjdia line was completed in July 1871 and handed over for use. After the opening of the line and chutes, the transported iron ore cost dropped to 7 Fillérs for each quintal of transported iron ore. In 1888 the chutes were replaced by inclined planes (funicular), the first one long at Nădrab, and the other long at Retișoara.
After the construction of the ironworks at Hunedoara in 1882, the large quantity of iron ore mined from Ghelari could not be transported to Hunedoara by the existing systems. For that, it was necessary to build a separate transport system. Because of economic and geographic problems, they opted for the construction of a ropeway conveyor system. Its construction was completed in 1884, which ensured entirely the ore necessities of the first three blast furnaces from Hunedoara.
However, after the start of the 4th blast furnace the existing ropeway conveyor system proved to be insufficient in ensuring the iron ore needs for all four blast furnaces, so they decided to build a second ropeway conveyor system between Ghelari and Hunedoara parallel to the existing one.
Considering the high costs of transportation for the iron ore and charcoal to the blast furnaces from Govăjdia and Hunedoara, in 1897 they decided on a radical overhaul of the transport system.
This is how the Transylvanian Mining Railway was built, where at the Retișoara terminus arrived the iron ore mined from the mines of Ghelari, which was then transported to the iron works from Govăjdia and Hunedoara.
The construction of the Transylvanian Mining Railway determined the radical overhaul of the Ghelari central mine's transport system, so it became necessary to descend the entire quantity of mined ore to the "Kerpely" mine face adit which was connected by railway to the "Lukács László" tunnel by extending the adit and the extension of this adit could have been done with modest costs.
The construction of the "Lukács László" tunnel was started in 1898 from two directions and met in the middle in 1899, the tunnel was long along with the "Lukács László" adit reached . The two entrances of the tunnel were lined with stone, for the rest of the tunnel lining was not necessary because it was passing through solid shale. The tunnel is lower than the tunnel built in 1863, so because of the incline the water coming from the upper tunnel flowed down to the lower tunnel.
Through the "Lukács László" tunnel from the inclined plane, a 633mm gauge, electrified railway with an incline of 4‰ was built to the "Kerpely" adit where formally a horse-drawn existed and was electrified, also the inclined plane from Retişoara valley was overhauled to lower and raise 4 filled ore cars and 4 empty ore cars on the two platforms. The inclined plane worked by gravity so the weight of the first platform with the filled ore cars descending to the valley floor, pulled up via a cable the platform with the empty ore cars. The iron ore lowered on the inclined plane was forwarded via an -long electrified (sometimes helped by a steam locomotive) which started from the base of the inclined plane and ended at the Retișoara's terminus where three electrically driven jaw crushers were installed to crush and sort the iron ore into eight class loading bins where they loaded the iron ore into the cars of the train from where the iron ore was transported to the ironworks from Govăjdia and Hunedoara. The trackbed preparation work began in 1888 and in 1897 and 1898 were so advanced, that for the line construction the decision steps were made after the connection of the Ghelari mine railway to the Retișoara inclined plane and after the overhaul of the Retișoara inclined plane, further more the legal occupation of the necessary terrain for the railway has started, the surveying of the trackbed was done successfully between January 9–13, 1899, the ministry of commerce asked for a visit from the government that was held at the Hunedoara town hall on 14 February 1899, the construction authorization was given verbally on the mining company's responsibility. The construction of the railway was started at the beginning of spring, on 4 March 1899 with the ceremonial first hoe stroke. The contract for the construction and usage of the railway was made between three Austrian companies called Gfrerer, Schoch, and Grossmann under the ordinance number 24089 from 15 March 1899 issued by the Hungarian Kingdom's Finance Ministry.
The Transylvanian Mining Railway starts at Hunedoara, passes over the Zlaști valley, and through the tunnel at Cățănaș into Govăjdia valley from where it goes to Retişoara valley that belongs to Ghelari, where it ends at the base of the inclined plane at a total length of , with a 760mm gauge built exclusively for steam locomotive usage, the highest incline on the open line was 27‰, in the stations 25‰, the tightest turn radius on the open track was 50 metres, in stations 50 metres. The weight of the steel rails used was with usage of jointed tracks that were mounted on ties that were so densely placed so under the 2.5-ton weight exerted by each wheel, would not surpass 1 ton on each cm².
The distance between tracks in the stations measured from the centre was 3 metres, considering the largest with of the rolling stock of 2.2 meters. The ties were trapezoid shaped, made of oak, at a length of 1.5 metres each, 12 cm high, bottom 20 cm wide, top 14 cm wide.
The Transylvanian Mining Railway had four stations, at Hunedoara, Govăjdia, Nădrab, and Retișoara, and four halts: two at Zlaști, one at Cățănaș, and one at Tulea. The Hunedoara's West station was 5,35 metres higher than the upper factory railway leading to the throat of the number 4 blast furnace, and 6,65 above the level of the throat of the number 4 blast furnace. The lines of the station were connected to the factory's upper ore tipplers where the iron ore filled cars were shunted in by a locomotive and emptied. The station was also connected to the charcoal tipplers. Here they also emptied the limestone. The line was also connected via a metal bridge to the earlier mentioned charcoal tipplers where the charcoal transported from the charcoal kilns in the Poiana Ruscă mountains and emptied here. For the transportation of iron ore on regular railway, a transfer station was built to transfer the iron ore from the narrow-gauge ore cars to the regular gauge cars. The exclusively mountain specific, mining railway with the high incline, three tunnels (the longest at 747 meters), with numerous artworks, exquisite metallic bridges, had a positive impact on the development and value of the two ironworks, also helped on the improvement of the image and installations of the ironworks, so it proved to be a real success for the local iron ore mining and the two ironworks.
The construction of the railway was constructed on the mining company's own expense, until 1906 the construction and conversion to a local interest railway cost 3,655,000 krones, and another 300,000 krones calculated for a 30-year usage after the opening, so the railway is passed freely into the property and administration of the state Treasury.
On the railway they were compelled to transport to Hunedoara at least 180,000 tonnes of ore yearly (to Govăjdia 20,000 tonnes of ore yearly at a cost of 60–140 Fillér per ton), and also around 9,000 tonnes of other materials and blast furnace products from Govăjdia yearly towards Hunedoara at a unitary price of 1,2 Fillér, in case of higher traffic the transport costs would be lowered accordingly.
The notes gathered by the Hungarian Kingdom's ministry of commerce at the time of visit of the government, were approved under the ordinance number 14230 on 27 April 1899, in the meantime the construction authorization was finally given. The mining railway was finalized under 19 months according to the construction contract. The inspection of the line was done on 29 September 1900 and handed over for use. In the second half of November 1900 the first test transport was also done to the contract accordingly when the line's transport simplification capacity was proven.
The above-mentioned installations were put in use and handed over for traffic in the autumn of 1900. On the Transylvanian mining railway from the opening, the following iron ore quantity was transported: 1900 – 20,380.8 T 1901 – 188,920.2 T 1902 – 206,507.2 T 1903 – 204,323.3 T 1904 – 184,302.9 T 1905 – 169,076.4 T