Most excellent adventures

Our steam photo-charter started in earnest at Most, another spot in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by green fields. The station is located a mile beyond the nearest village, down a winding road that provided an interesting challenge for our two coaches. On arrival at the modest station we could see that the spectacle of some steam powered action had already drawn an audience of Bulgarian enthusiasts and curious locals.

There was no disputing that we had a gorgeous day to start our photography with almost cloudless blue skies and enough of a chill in the air to ensure the most impressive steam effects. And what a sight we had in front of us – an express locomotive with a set of carriages built for Tsar Boris III, Tsaritsa Ioanna and Prince Kiril in 1938 complete with wood panelled dining car and lounge carriages!

Our steam locomotive for the first two days – 03.12

Our locomotive for the first two days of the tour was to be 03.12, built by Henschel & Son for Bulgarian State Railways (BDŽ) in 1942. BDŽ had originally placed an order for fifty locomotives of this type, designed to haul heavy passenger trains over the challenging gradients of the Bulgarian railway network.

The railway factories in Germany were churning out a series of relatively sophisticated locomotives whilst switching to the production of radically simplified versions of pre-war locomotives for the home markets. Something had to give and work for the export market stopped. In the end only twelve locomotives of this class were built, with the last being delivered in early 1943.

As with the other designs produced for BDŽ the locomotives were designed with the characteristics of the network and the lower calorific coal in mind. In their post war lives the locomotives were converted to mixed oil and coal firing, further tailoring the locomotives to the Bulgarian network with much improved performances on the mountain lines.

The entire class survived the war and were used on the major routes, particularly through the mountains from Gorna Orjachowiza towards Pleven and Varna. The locomotives were withdrawn in the 1970s.

03.12 hauls our train past the stunning vista at Sredna Arda

As our tour would be running on the mainline we would have to work around any service trains, which would normally limit the opportunities for photo stops. To give us more of a chance, our tour organiser, Bernd Seiler, had arranged for a regular freight train to run an hour earlier to clear the line for us. This would be just one of many carefully organised arrangements, negotiated over many months, that made for an exceptional photo charter.

The photography got underway with a false departure from Most around 9.25, heading south, followed by two run pasts on the hillside near a ruined station at Kaloyantsi and six runpasts at Sredna Arda where the line curves around an embankment that runs all the way down to the lake, with opportunities to take shots from station level or from up in the rocks. An elderly chap enthusiastically welcoming our train by waving his walking stick added some local colour.

I’ve been on photo charters on this line before, in spring, but never with the beautiful colours of autumn – or indeed, with such clear skies. That trip in 2016 was fraught with difficulties and some shots slipped through our fingers. One of those we missed came at the viaduct near Sedlovina. I was delighted by the opportunity to rectify this and walk down to the shoreline to get a shot of our train passing over the viaduct with the old railway bridge in the foreground for two runpasts (12:30-12:45). We had to board quickly after we got our shots as the level crossing ahead had already closed before the second run past.

Our train crosses the viaduct near Sedlovina on the first of two runpasts

It was only a short way on from here to Kardzhali, where we stopped for a short while before departing (13:50). Our loco seemed to struggle with the climb away from the town, but then made good progress on the scenic stretch of line which features a series of stone arched bridges and viaducts. I was delighted to rectify another photographic fail from 2016 (on that occasion we waited at one of the viaducts in beautiful light only for the train to pass when all the light had gone).

Finally, we arrived at Podkova, the end of the line, at 5.45pm. Politics long ago dictated that the line would never be extended to the nearby Greek border but that was clearly the original intention, rather than petering out rather strangely at a small village with a population of around 300.

It has been an absolutely superb day of photography and our crew delivered magnificently. Apparently, there was one last photo spot that we skipped as the crew were at the limits of their allowed 12 hours, but we were all extremely happy with what we had manged to capture in our cameras. As it was, the fireman had only 2 hours sleep and the driver had fared not much better with 3 hours.

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The mysterious case of the missing wagons

The afternoon in Kardzhali offered us a last chance to take the shots on the short stretch of line to Podkova, including the elusive viaduct between Kardzhali and Momchilgrad which had resisted all our efforts to photograph it in sun from the high vantage point. However, when we assembled at Kardzhali station ready for the re-start at 3.30pm it was clear that the plan had already fallen to pieces.

Awaiting news at Kardzhali

We had the locomotive and the sun but not the freight cars that we needed to make up the train! The wagons of the right historical vintage, that are certified to run on BDŽ lines, were en route from Dimitrovgrad but apparently running 2-3 hours late. The station master at Kardzhali said that the section between Most and Kardzhali was not blocked (i.e. our train had not entered the section) and would be between Haskovo and Most. The sad conclusion was that there was no real hope of them arriving before the light disappeared.

In this unenviable situation the horrible choice before the organisers was between light engine or no engine, knowing that neither of which would be popular with anyone. Who would be a charter organiser!? Trying to put a positive spin on this I suppose you could say that engines did run light at times so it’s not historically inaccurate, just not what anyone would like to see!

To add to our frustration there were plenty of wagons in the yard at Kardzhali but we couldn’t use any of them in place of the wagons we had ordered. One line of wagons looked ok to my untrained eye but was apparently made up of condemned stock that were unfit to run, whilst the modern stock could only be used with a little flexibility from BDŽ. Needless to say, flexibility is not on offer…

Light loco

Light loco it was. We headed off by bus to a lovely green landscape just outside Kardzhali, accessed by crossing an old airstrip. The shot of 46.03 passing through was lovely in its own way, but definetly lacked something.

At this lowest point we received news from the field (quite literally) that our wagons were arriving at Kardzhali! The crew realised this when they stopped the loco in the fields ready for us to get into position – they heard the diesel arrive (just ten minutes after we left by bus) and contacted the station master at Kardzhali by mobile phone. He confirmed that the wagons had indeed arrived.

The station master at Kardzhali told the crew that if we wanted the wagons they would have to go straight to Momchilgrad and get there by 4.14pm or he wouldn’t authorise the departure of the wagons. The only option was for our loco to continue light to Momchilgrad and wait for the wagons there, skipping the ever elusive viaduct. Totalitarianism is still working here!

Awaiting our wagons at Momchilgrad

We carried on to Momchilgrad and sure enough the freight cars arrived at 4.40pm. Now the game was back on! We had three runpasts at the viaduct on the line between Momchilgrad and Podkova between 5pm and 5.15pm, though sadly the sun disappeared just as we got to the spot (in desperation I grabbed a few shots of the loco setting back as I saw the sun about to slip behind the clouds).

The next three runpasts took place in glorious late sun at the level crossing we had visited previously. It really is a lovely stretch of line between Momchilgrad and Podkova. I think there is more potential for shots from the road taking in the sweeping scenery and it will be interesting to see the results of the local car-chasing photographers.

A burst of sun at Podkova

Finally, we made it into Podkova just after 6pm to find that a good crowd of locals (more than we had seen on previous days) had gathered to enjoy the spectacle. A more fitting end to an enjoyable four days with 46.03 than the madness of the previous few hours.

A crazy, crazy afternoon. You would have thought that BDŽ would know where their own trains are, but evidently not. It’s not exactly reassuring is it!? Still, we got some nice shots in the end, even if it was a painful process getting there!

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16.27 to Podkova

The afternoon gave us our only run behind 16.27, a steam locomotive constructed by the Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf, Vienna, in 1948 to a simplified wartime design (class 42) and exported to Bulgaria in 1952 along with 32 other locomotives of this class. The numbers in Bulgaria may have been relatively low, but across all the manufacturers 849 class 42 locomotives were built between 1943 and 1949.

16.27 at Most (with diesel 07.126 lurking in the background)

In Bulgaria the locomotives were designated as class 16 and were an immediate success, hauling heavy freight trains on steep and curvaceous sections of network from their home depots of Ruse and Gorna Oryahovitsa in Northern Bulgaria. The class had a good lifespan, continuing to haul trains in regular service until 1990. Today, the only member of the class in operational use in Bulgaria is 16.27 following the completion of her restoration in 2015.

Our run with 16.27 began with departure from Most at 1.35pm and ended at Podkova around 6pm. The results were a little mixed photographically, principally because the cover of the spark arrestor often had the effect of pushing the smoke down, smothering the train. As one member of our party said, nothing that an oxy-acetylene torch couldn’t fix! However, when everything was in favour the results were splendid (for the conditions) and we got a good selection of shots.

16.27 on the viaduct between Perperek and Sredna Arda

This was be our last run on the stretch of line between Most and Kardzhali, giving us a last chance to grab any shots that we have missed so far. The delights on offer this afternoon included a false departure from Most, two runpasts at a viaduct beyond Perperek (2pm-2.15pm), a single runpast at a tight spot beside a lineside posthouse just before Sredna Arda (2.35pm) having beaten down thorns to create a position, runpasts at Sredna Arda from low and high (2.48pm and 2.55pm) with the latter shot taken from a handy ‘seat’ in the rockface, a runpast at tunnel portal 3 (3.15pm), a runpast at the exit of the next rock cutting (3.24pm) and a runpast at the tunnel portal 4 (3.37pm).

One classic shot that eluded us up to this point was a view of the causeway coming towards Kardzhali – we stopped at the spot today (at 3.59pm) to the delight of one of my fellow photographers. An Australian chap in our group commented ‘Your fairy godmother is looking after you’ but then as we were halfway out we were all told to re-board, leading the same chap to admit that he spoke to soon ‘Your fairy godmother just ****ped on you!’. It was a pity that we had to abandon the shot to keep to our timings, but to be fair we were running 40 minutes late at this point!

At Kardzhali we boarded our bus and drove to the spot overlooking the viaduct between Kardzhali and Momchilgrad. On this occasion I chose the high viewpoint, which involves walking along a busy four lane road with no pavement to a couple of spots that look down onto the viaduct. After two runpasts we began our walk back along the road, staying as close to the guard rail as possible, only to hear the locomotive going for a third run and reached a distant viewpoint in time to see a fourth.

16.27 on the viaduct between Kardzhali and Momchilgrad

The bus continued on to the next viaduct where we had the opportunity to photograph the train on two runpasts from a high vantage point (5-5.30pm) with a terrific view of the landscape beyond, before re-boarding our train. A couple of stragglers got left behind this point but some nifty footwork from our organisers got some local gricers to pick them up in their car, dropping them off at Podkova where they were bemused to see an empty train arrive (we had climbed out at a level crossing a short distance from Podkova for two runpasts and then walked back to the station).

Over the past three days we have covered most of the good spots on the line between Kardzhali and Most, with the obvious exception of the causeway in the direction of Kardzhali. The number of spots is limited by the dense vegetation that surrounds much of the line, though it is possible that there could be some shots to be had with rural and industrial scenes on the stretch of line just beyond Kardzhali. I’m quite happy with the opportunities that we’ve had, even if I’m not convinced that I’ve made the most of that!

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Storming to Most

A night of rain has given way to a cool and cloudy morning, though the pools of water around and about leave you in no doubt what had come before. Although the conditions are not going to have any photographer leaping for joy it is clear that they could have been an awful lot worse. The glass in front of me is half full…

03.12 at Momchilgrad

The photographic day started with an outing to Momchilgrad to capture 03.12 in front of the rickety old engine shed. I didn’t have the highest of hopes, but we got lucky with a burst of sun through a rare break in the cloud cover. It might have been short-lived but it was sufficient to get the shot before the clouds closed back in.

Our morning charter with 46.03 took us from Kardzhali (departing at 9.08am) to Most (arriving at 12.07pm). Along the way we got to see just how much the overnight rain had transformed the lineside landscape with streams in place of dry ditches and water running off both sides of a rock cutting that we walked through).

46.03 storms through the rock cutting on the approach to Sredna Arda

In my opinion the morning worked out much better than expected photographically and nothing could diminish the spectacular sight of 46.03 storming through the rock cutting towards Sredna Arda.

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Dodging the rain

Our train headed on from Spirka Zvezdelina at 3.43pm with stops at Kardzhali (4-4.10pm) and Momchilgrad (5-5.10pm) before reaching Podkova at 6.06pm.

Turning back the clock: Three steam locomotives at Momchilgrad

You can’t help but consider Podkova an odd place for the line to end, with the line petering out just beyond the station confines on the outskirts of a small village in the Eastern Rhodopes. However, this makes more sense when you consider that the village lies just 15km from the Makaza Pass on the Bulgarian-Greek border. Politics dictated that the line would never be extended to the border but that was clearly the original intention.

Podkova has remained a sleepy spot with the southernmost railway station in Bulgaria for many years. However, what the railways failed to achieve has recently been rectified on the road network with the assistance of EU funding. A new border crossing at Makaza was opened on 9th September 2013 as part of the plans for a crucial Pan-European Transport Corridor that will link Romania and Greece through Central Bulgaria.

46.03 at Podkova

The conditions had been steadily deteriorating through the afternoon but the darkening clouds gave us ample warning of the storm brewing in the distance as we left Kardzhali and we spent the remaining hours of daylight just about staying one step ahead of the rain.

Heavy rain began to fall just after we got back to the hotel, accompanied by thunder and lightning, prompting the cancellation of the night shoot. The scene outside looked pretty miserable with rivers forming in the roads. As bad as this looked, it was nothing compared to the flooding which hit Varna, where whole neighbourhoods ended up under water at the height of the deluge.

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Madness at Momchilgrad

The run to Most began with a ridiculously tight window for a shot on the other side of the viaduct between Momchilgrad and Kardzhali. The timings allowed us to work around the morning commuter service operated by a modern diesel multiple unit (Momchilgrad sees four services a day in each direction between Kardzhali and Podkova, plus a couple of services to/from Dimitrovgrad).

03.12 hauls a light express across the viaduct between Momchilgrad and Kardzhali

Our train departed from Momchilgrad was scheduled for 7.45am and just seven minutes was allocated for a photostop at the viaduct – in this time the entire contingent of photographers would need to disembark, clamber down the hillside to the riverside, take their photographs and then clamber back up. If it sounds impossible, that’s because it is!

In reality our train departed a couple of minutes late from Momchilgrad at 7.47am and we only made it back onto the train at 8.17am, arriving into Kardzhali at 8.32am. However, the shots from the riverside in beautiful light were absolutely worth the effort.

On our arrival into Kardzhali the crew got a heroes welcome from a school party who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The children waved, cheered and squealed each time the whistle blew and their faces showed sheer delight in the scene. I don’t suppose any of them are likely to have encountered steam before (although steam charters are run on this line occasionally you would be doing well to stumble across one by chance).

03.12 at Kardzhali

At 8.59am the local commuter service arrived from Momchilgrad bang on schedule, so our longer stop at the viaduct had not caused any delay. Presumably the schedules for our train have a degree of generosity, so the panicked scramble down to the riverside (‘hurry up and safely’) was a little unnecessary.

A brief pause in our steam activities gave us a chance to grab a coffee from the stall on the platform and try some shots of our train through the windows of the booking office.

The commuter train left on time at 9.10am (back to Momchilgrad) whilst our train headed in the opposite direction five minutes later (towards Most).

Morning express to Most

A fresh day, blue skies and sun. The perfect conditions for a long day of photography, starting with a return to Momchilgrad to board the morning express to Most. For the moment let’s ignore the fact that a small station in the middle of nowhere would be an unlikely destination for such a train, let alone one using carriages built for Tsar Boris III!

03.12 passes 16.27 outside the shed at Momchilgrad

Our train for the day is hauled by express locomotive 03.12, built by Henschel & Son for Bulgarian State Railways (BDŽ) in 1943. BDŽ had originally placed an order for fifty locomotives of this type, designed to haul heavy passenger trains over the challenging gradients of the Bulgarian railway network.

In our off the cuff lessons in Bulgarian railway history we have been struck by how the railway factories in Germany were churning out a series of relatively sophisticated locomotives whilst switching to the production of radically simplified versions of pre-war locomotives for the home markets. However, it was for precisely this reason that work for the export market stopped. In the end only twelve locomotives of this class were built, with the last being delivered in early 1943.

As with the other designs produced for BDŽ the locomotives were designed with the characteristics of the network and the lower calorific coal in mind, although their heritage can clearly be seen in German locomotives. In their post war lives the locomotives were converted to mixed oil and coal firing, further tailoring the locomotives to the Bulgarian network with much improved performances on the mountain lines.

The entire class survived the war and were used on the major routes, particularly through the mountains from Gorna Orjachowiza towards Pleven and Varna. The locomotives were withdrawn in the 1970s. Our locomotive, the last of the series, returned to operational use in 2011.

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Lessons in light

After our arrival at Kardzhali we headed off by bus to check in at Hotel Ustra, our base for the next four nights, but there was no time to get settled. We needed to get back out on the lineside to photograph the empty train hauled by 46.03 on the viaduct between Kardzhali and Momchilgrad.

Everyone dumped their stuff and re-boarded the bus at 5.45pm for the short drive out of town. The empty train was expected to depart from Kardzhali at 6pm so we had only a small window to reach the viaduct and get to a good spot. There are two options – to walk along the edge of the busy road to get the view looking down over the viaduct or to follow the well-trodden path to a position looking up to the viaduct. I opted for the latter.

The position was perfectly illuminated when a few of us reached the optimum spot by the water’s edge and we even had a remarkable concert of birdsong to entertain us. All we needed was a train…

The view at 6.30pm, mid-way through our wait.

The minutes ticked by, but no train materialised. We watched as the shadows gradually crept across the river, up the bank on the opposite side of the river and then up the pillars of the viaduct itself. I can tell you that there are few things more galling for a photographer than to see a shot slipping away like this. It might almost have been better to have turned up at the last minute than to have seen how perfect it was a little earlier!

In the end the empty train arrived at 7.01pm, over an hour later than expected, when almost all the light was gone. Moments after the train passed the sun dipped below the hills and took with it the last of the light.

The empty train crossing the viaduct at 7.01pm

It would be an understatement to say that the group was a little deflated after this, having seen the potential for a lovely shot crumble into nothing, but most of us have enjoyed moments that have fallen the other way too. In truth, the formation of the train, with the water tank between the loco and the carriages, would never have made this the perfect shot but no photographer would ever let such a small detail get in the way of a grumble about the light!

Most of us were gluttons for punishment and/or eternal optimists, choosing to return to Momchilgrad later in the evening for a night shoot at the pretty shed and water tower. We finally staggered back to our rooms just after 11pm.