Running the last train service of the day from Szob to the summit at Nagyirtáspuszta, a 760-mm-gauge diesel rail bus (nicknamed "Tóbi 2" [Toby 2] by its manufacturer, the central workshop for three forestry railways in the Börzsöny mountains) nears Vetettfű halt, in a forest showing autumn colours early due to a heatwave. This line was born a century ago, when the forestry railway near the village of Nagybörzsöny was cut off from its mainline connection by border changes, so it was connected to another narrow-gauge railway (serving quarries in a neighbouring valley) through a mountain pass, with several switchbacks and loops. The network was closed in stages until the 1990s, but locals never gave up on re-opening the entire mainline as a tourist railway, which could be completed with EU funds by 2016. Since then, weekend trains on this section are operated by Bezina-völgyi Erdei Vasút (BvEV), one of two companies operating on either side of the mountain pass, but the rail bus got a livery with the aspirational name of the Szob-Márianosztra-Nagyirtáspuszta-Nagybörzsöny Forest Railway (SzMNNEV), the intended merged company that never came.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
