the Tatra railways, Slovakia

The first three photos were taken in 2007.  The Tatra Electric Railway or Tatranská elektrická železnica in Slovak is a metre gauge system of 35 km (1.5 kV DC) in the southern or Slovak part of the Tatra mountains (some of the mountains are in Poland) which serves hikers (and skiers in winter).

The first photo shows the steep Zahnradbahn or rack railway at the top station of Štrbské Pleso (1,350 metres altitude) and the second photo shows its bottom terminal at Štrba (850 metres altitude).  This was the first part of the system to be built, back in 1896.  The third photo shows the platforms at Štrba for the regular Slovak Railways - these platforms are a level below in the same building.


The rest of the railway (adhesion system) was opened in stages: Poprad to Starý Smokovec in 1908; Starý Smokovec to Tatranská Lomnica in 1911 and the final part from Starý Smokovec to Štrbské Pleso was opened in 1912. At that time the railway was used for both passenger and cargo transport.

The fourth photo shows the older class 420.95 electric multiple units of which 18 were built and operated from the late 1960s until 2002, now replaced with new 425.95 class trains from Stadler (one of the these can be seen in the left of the first photo. The photo below by Francois Jolly shows one of the new sets in the afforested slopes which were badly ravaged by a storm a few years ago.