The Narrow-Gauge turns 91!

Happy Birthday to the Rhodope Narrow Gauge! On this day 91 years ago the first stretch of the narrow-gauge railway was opened to the public. It connects the valley town of Septemvri with the mountain SPA-resort Velingrad.

During the First World War, Bulgaria sensed the huge lack of fast transport connections with the periphery of the country. Many Bulgarian lands were nearly detached and this was making them an easy target for the rival states, thirsty for new territories. The problem was particularly serious in the Rhodopes which were almost inaccessible at the time.

This is why in 1915 the government ordered that the valleys of the rivers Yadenitsa, Eli dere (today Chepinska) and Vacha were to be studied and it was to be chosen which one of the is the most suitable for the construction of a railway to the heart of the Rhodope mountain.

In the following 1916 it was decided! A narrow-gauge line was to be built from Saranbey, through the gorge of the river Eli dere, the Chepino Valley, the Avramovo Saddle and along the valley of the river Mesta to Razlog and Nevrokop (today Gotse Delchev). On 25th May 1920 the 19th National Assembly voted and passed a law № 1257 for the construction of a 760 mm-narrow-gauge railway from Saranbey to Ladzhene, Yakoruda, Razlog and Nevrokop.

The question who will design the line immediately arose. The first two engineers, who were invited, immediately quit. The reason: the extremely dangerous and wild gorge of the Eli dere river. Then the young engineer Stoyan Mitov, who had just graduated in Germany, arrived in Bulgaria. It was he who started planning the narrow-gauge line from Trakiya to Pirin.

Construction began in the same year - 1920. Winter came and most of the actual activities were postponed until the spring, so in 1921 workers from the National Labour Service, freshly formed by the government of Alexander Stamboliyski, began the construction works on the first, mostly plane section of the line between the stations Saranbey and Varvara.

In 5 years - until the summer of 1926 - the railroad pierced its way though the gorge and reached the village of Ladzhene. The work was carried out in very difficult conditions, without any technical equipment or machinery. The ten tunnels on this stretch were built though blasts, picks and shovels, in extremely life-threatening conditions.

On the second of August, 1926, exactly at 11 AM, the fist train in the history of the Rhodope Narrow Gauge departed. After Saranbey, the train stopped at station Varvara, stop Banite, station Dorkovo, station Bakardzhiyski han, station Dolene, stop Drenov dol, station Chukata and descended into the last station Ladzhene-Kamenitza. The trip lasted 3 hours and 22 minutes.

91 years later the line is still important to the locals and increasingly popular among Bulgarian and foreign tourists. It is certain, that the narrow-gauge railway has played a crucial role in the development of Velingrad as a city and industrial centre in the past.

Here is a video of last year's celebrations along the line: