Crossing the East Carpathians through the Ghimes-Palanca pass

After 1873 when the Austrian -Hungarian railway reached to Brasov, according to the railway construction program in Transilvani, in October 1891 Brasov was linked to Sfantu Gheorghe (Treiscaune-Three chairs county at the time).
Political debates over the Europe division generated a spectacular reorientation of the Austrian -Hungarian interests, manifested in 1891 by the request to the Romania's address of realizing a new railway link having also a strategic character. If at first the Hungary intended to make the passing through Carpathian by the Oituz pass-meaning from Sfantu Gheorghe through Bertcu and then on the Oituz valley-, the Bucharest having another option, insisted and convinced the authorities, so that the convention was signed for the decision of making the link through the Ghimes-Palanca pass meaning from Sfantu Gheorghe, throuh Miercurea Ciuc, up to the custom check point Ghimes; Romania was to make the link from Gimes to Adjud.
Built with Austrian - Hungarian funds, the Sfatu Gheorghe railway up to Miercurea Ciuc (63.6 km) was finished on April 5, 1897; the continuation from Miercurea Ciuc to Ghimes boundaries (50.9 km) was finished on October 18, 1897. The inauguration of traffic toward Romania on the Ghimes-Adjud route took place on April 16, 1899.
This was the first breaking through of the East Carpathians by the iron way!
The railway route begins with Sfantu Gheroghe at 531 m high, climbs the superior course of the Olt, crossing the Bodoc and Harghita mountains to finally get through the volcanic zone of the Ciuc mountanis reaching in the end to Miercurea Ciuc at 687 m high, following the Olt river course.
The realization of such route was pretty difficult; 193 bridges were necessary to cross over the restless Olt; the route also includes 14 stations and halts. The Ardeal sonority of the names some of the stations and halts have is obvious: Malnas, Bicsad, Sancraieni, Santimbru. Not to mention the older names these stations had: the present halt of the arcus was called before Ghildafau, and the Ciceu rail station of today was called in 1919 Modofalau.
We also have to notice the fact that this route, apart from the picturesque specific to the 600 m height with its "Nordic" green vegetation makes also the kink to the climacteric resorts from Bodoc, and Tusnad with their famous mineral springs, but also the stone quarries from Malnas and Bicsad.
Continuing our journey toward the place where the Transilvania embraces Moldavia-the pass through which we are going to cross the mountains-, from Ciceu the rail leaves the Olt and goes to the North climbing the Racos valley, a little continuation of the Olt. After crossing the deep valley of Caracau, the rail gets toward the south ending of the Halmasu Mare, motehr of the two brothers the Mures and the Olt. On the right side we have the great mountain massive of the Ciuc.
The landscape is more than one we can find in Switzerland! The two mountains cut through by the railway are overwhelming and the sky is not often easily to see. The green abundant vegetation with the lofty green trees as if wanting to pierce the sky….
The platform is of 25‰ and the 250 m curves are omnipresent especially in the Livezi Ciuc and Palitinis stations. Within this 50 km area we cross valleys and waters on 84 bridges and viaducts as there are the Bania viaduct near Livezi Ciuc and the famous Caracau with its height of 64.44 m attested in the railway history.
To have a complete image of this route we have to say that at Livezi Ciuc there lies the rail station placed at the highest point within the route. But it doesn't mean that this is the highest altitude for the rail. From this point forth, the platform goes on up to the cote of 1012 m which is in fact inside the Ciumani tunnel. Entering this tunnel is made on a 4‰ declivity. This represent in fact the second special work of art within this route, a tunnel which respects the "waters' split", meaning the racos river toward Ardeal, and the Trotus toward Moldavia. The tunnel has in longitudinal section a plate V form; this means that after 500 m with a 4%o declivity, once entering the Livezi Ciuc it has a 30 m floor extension with a few hook-ups; it climbs down to Ghimes (668 m heigh) on a 600 m distance with a 15%o declivity. It is a particular construction. Due to its length of 12233 m it places among the first five tunnels in the country. Getting out of the tunnel, the railway contnues to go down on the river valley to the bottoms of the Tarcau mountains and farther on along the Trotus up to the habitats exploiting the superior black cool as Asau and Comanesti.
The landscape is still gorgeous even more welcoming with forests we seem to hear an alpenhorn call or why not a bear groaning…
Finally we would like to explain why the Caracu viaduct entered in the railway's history.
The 64 m depth and the over 260 m length of building was a real difficult problems for the constructor of the time. Even the solution the Hungarians proposed (let's not forget the fact that we were in 1895) was kind of special: the 101.76 m central opening was covered with semi-parabolic grinder having the upper rails split into two lateral openings of 51.36 m. on each side they had brick vaults linked to the main vault by two straight grinders of 51.39 m each. Together with the main grinder they leaned on two brick piles of 40-m height.
This is how the Caracau viaduct looked on September 18, 1897. This is the time when it was opened officially together with the Miercurea Ciuc-Ghimes route rail and this is how the hostilities of the First World War found it. Misfortunately, the grinder was totally destroyed during the war (1916).
The Austrian -Hungarian armies managed to fix another straight grinder the next year, but supporting only a third of the opening by a metallic path of 40- m high. This provisory solution was exploited for almost 27 years.
The Second World War had to come and the viaduct was completely destroyed by the German troupes in 1944!
The war ended and the economic life of the country imposed a new link between the mountains. From December 1944 until February 12 in 1945, Romanian constructors built a provisory viaduct completely of wood (3600 km). This performance is a unique type in the railway construction field.
In parallel, the new reconstruction of the viaduct began and was ready to be used in September 14, 1946. This time it was made completely of ferro-concrete as it can still be admired even nowadays.

Dan Dragos Aldea