Dobrinishte to Avramovo

Our third and final day on the Rhodope Narrow Gauge Railway started from the current terminus at Dobrinishte, six kilometres on from Bansko. Today, it all seems rather dead but I imagine it was a hive of activity in its day, with goods being transferred to the road for their onward journey to the communities aroundabouts. Services from Dobrinishte began operation in December 1945 but that’s as far as it would ever go. Plans were made to extend the line another 30km south, as the crow flies, to Gotse Delchev, but these were never realised.

We arrived at the station at Dobrinishte in time to see our train arrive tender first. The loco ran around and then entertained us with two sets of false departures. The real departure, with two carriages full of photographers, took place at 08:33. Over the next fifty minutes we were able to tackle another three runpasts at two crossings, before reaching Bansko (09:21) and trying a few false arrival/departure shots ahead of our real departure (09:53).

Steamy morning in Dobrinishte

The lineside vegetation has gotten out of control in many places along the lines we have travelled. It’s not unusual for photographers on these trips to bring secateurs and other gardening tools to help clean up the lineside, but on this tour someone had taken this to the next level with portable garden strimmers and a couple of chainsaws. It was all rather impressive and very much needed. Goodness knows how mad it looked to the locals as we set about strimming a platform before a runpast!

Our journey today took us to Razlog (10:04) and then on to Belitsa (11:35), with plenty of runpasts along the way, including two shifts to get a shot of a semaphore signal. After a lunch break we set off again (12:35), passing Dagonovo (12:48) and Yurukovo (12:52) on the way to the outskirts of Yakoruda. Somewhere along the way one of our group kindly killed a little scorpion like creature climbing up my back! Eek…

At Yakoruda we tried a couple of runpasts next to the local cemetery (13:30-13:45) before reaching Yakoruda station (13:50). A diesel-hydraulic locomotive, 75006.7, was connected to our train (14:00) here in readiness for the run towards the peak of the line, taking us on to Cherna Mesta (14:22) and then on to tunnel 35 (14:40).

The tunnel shot was always going to be very tight with such a large group and it was originally planned to attempt this twice, but in the end it was such a struggle that once was quite enough! On a first attempt the loco was on its way and then stopped, with only smoke emerging from the tunnel. Then on the second attempt, the loco made it out but incredibly slowly.

False arrival at Avramovo (take 2)

Finally, we reached the peak of the line at Avramovo (15:12). A diesel passenger service hauled by 75009.1 crossed shortly after (15:20), heading towards Dobrinishte. Afterwards we were able to photograph another false arrival. Shockingly, we didn’t get the light on our first attempt. It’s quite extraordinary that that we’ve had to wait till the end of our fifth day for cloud to block the sun on a shot – it really has been that good up to now.

After a bit of a wait the sun emerged from behind the clouds for a second attempt. Now our problem was two photographers behind a signal hut who were not quite as inconspicuous as they might have imagined. It was subtly suggested by someone that “Every part of your body that is sticking out will be cut down by chainsaw” which proved persuasive!

It’s lovely to have the shots in the bag after three days and I feel like I’ve done the line justice now, remedying my somewhat unsatisfying last visit. Now it is time to move on and join our tour buses ready for the drive westwards to Pernik.

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