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| 1406 CFF Vişeu de Sus - Locomotive 764.421 Elveţia (Switzerland), in Valea Scradei, on July 15, 2008. |
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Posted on 11.01.2015, 14.12.2017
A mocăniţă is a narrow gauge railway in Romania (most notably in mountainous areas in Maramureş, Transylvania, and Bukovina), and the locomotives operating on them. The word is a term of endearment, derived from mocan (meaning shepherd or one who lives in the mountains), and suffixed as feminine and diminutive. Many of these forestry railways were built in the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially in the Carpathians. They followed the rivers, often necessitating tight curves, and the tracks were constructed so as to enable small locomotives to pull empty logging wagons up into the mountains and to let heavily loaded trains roll down under gravity to the saw mills.
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| 3217 CFF Vişeu de Sus - Locomotive 764.435 Bavaria |
The most well-known mocăniţă runs in the Vaser Valley in Maramureş County, in the far north of Romania, close to the border with Ukraine. CFF Vişeu de Sus (CFF is the abbreviation for Căile Ferate Forestiere, meaning Forestry Railway) is the last remaining forestry railway in Europe. The industrial use of timber in the Vaser Valley began in the 18th century, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. German-speaking settlers explored the forest, harvested the timber, and transported it in log rafts down the river to the saw mills of Vişeu de Sus.
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