History of the Railways in Slovakia
Brief summary
1. First railways in Slovakia (1838-1867)
Building the railways in Slovakia had in its beginnings within a character of industrial entrepreneurship with no state subventions. In the early 1850s, the government took charge of the railway construction for a short time. However, this business was already in 1854 entrusted to private entrepreneurs. The government supported the construction of strategic railways via state guarantees of invested capital valorisation.
In this period, the horse railway Bratislava - Trnava - Sereď and the steam railways Marchegg - Devínska Nová Ves - Bratislava - Štúrovo - Szob and Košice - Čaňa – Hidasnémeti were built.
Trains were only able to be decelerated manually. The maximum speed limit of 38 km/h was in 1851 raised to 53.06 km/h and in 1862 to 75.8 km/h. Nevertheless, trains were usually not even able to reach this speed.
The work of a railwayman was by its nature unusual (night shift, work on holidays), extremely demanding (duties required more than 40 hours long), dangerous and rather poorly remunerated. In spite of the general lack of railway workers, the interest for becoming a railwayman was low. Many workers came from abroad to work in this industry.
Locomotives of the first railways in Slovakia had a simple construction with a two-cylinder steam engine, an arrangement of the axles as 1 B or C, and without a driver’s cab. Freight wagons were not very specialised either. Relatively small dimensions of the compartments characterized the passenger coaches along with boarding carried out directly from platforms. They were heated by warm-water heating bottles and illuminated by candles or simple oil lamps. Wood was the predominant material that was used for the construction of coaches and wagons. Flat-bottomed iron rails were usually used. They were worn out within a relatively short period. By that time, railway buildings were still not distinguished as an individual architectonic building type. The communication between the station staff and track staff was ensured by optical signalisation (so-called basket signals) and, since the 1860s, by an acoustic signal system (so-called bell signals). Railway stations communicated via telegraph. The contact between the locomotive staff and track staff was ensured by means of various flags; at night, lights were used. In the middle 1860s, wire-operated distance signals began to be used at railway stations.
2. From the Austro-Hungarian Compromise to the Vienna Stock Market crash (1867-1873)
The decision for Hungarian railways to be administered individually - according to principles, which counted in Austria - was adopted during talks between the Austrians and Hungarians. An intensive construction of railways began in Hungary after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. The most important objective was to support exports and to concentrate the transit transport in Hungary. Though principal investors were still private entrepreneurs, the government took charge of completing the problematic railway constructions. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport was founded for the purposes of the state administration of transport affairs.
During this period, the foundations of Slovakia’s railway net came into existence. Companies of the Košice - Bohumín Railway (Košice - Žilina - Čadca), First Hungarian-Galician Railway (Michaľany - Humenné - Medzilaborce - Lupków), Hungarian North Eastern Railway (Košice - Čop), Prešov-Tarnów Railway (Prešov - Orlov), Považie Railway (by that time only the track Bratislava - Trnava, with steam-engine trains) and Gemer Industrial Railways (Bánréve - Fiľakovo, Bánréve - Plešivec - Dobšiná, Jesenské - Tisovec) invested their resources into building railways. The railway Fiľakovo - Zvolen - Vrútky was built entirely from state resources.
In comparison with the preceding period, the operation conditions did not change significantly. The emergence of a compact railway network created the conditions for an intensive development of transport in the subsequent periods.
The extensive building of railways increased the need for qualified railway staff. Therefore, special courses aimed at training new railwaymen had been constituted since 1867. Nevertheless, qualified workers from abroad began arriving henceforth. The first statute of the Hungarian State Railways, adopted in 1869, distinguished between the two categories of railway employees: railway officials and railway servants.
Wagon and coach frames began being made from iron. Distance signals, which were controlled manually, were being replaced with electrically controlled distances. Modern technologies, such as dynamite, began to be used for the purposes of digging grooves and building embankments. Using more durable and resistant rails made from Bessemer steel meant significant progress. Railway buildings then gained their specific architectonic character.
3. Building local railways (1873-1918)
The economic crisis, which was sparked by the Vienna Stock Market crash, revealed plenty of insufficiencies in the transport policy of that time. The government’s reaction to the situation that emerged comprised several measures: breaking up by providing state guarantees of invested capital valorisation for private entrepreneurs, supporting the technical level rise of less solvent private railways via state loans (a way of increasing the state’s influence on railways), extensive nationalization and, eventually, creating legislative conditions for building unexacting local railways.
The construction of partially built principal railways had been finished within the first half of the 1880s (particularly the track from Trnava - Trenčín - Žilina of the Považie Railway). Nearly 50 local normal gauge railways and dozens of narrow gauge forest and sugar factory railways were built from the 1880s until the Monarchy’s disintegration.
After mastering the crisis period, the intensity of railway transport significantly increased. As for passenger transport, this increase was the result of the implementation of zone tariffs on state railways in 1889. The implementation of the continuous deceleration of passenger trains combined with the progress that had been reached in the field of security technologies allowed the speed to be increased to 90 km/h in 1887 and in 1907 to 120 km/h. The First World War, however, interrupted favourable development trends in railway transport.
The Ministry of Transport had been responsible for the training of railway officials since 1887. The service regulation, adopted in 1884, distinguished between three categories of railway employees: railway officials, railway sub-officials and railway servants. The employees of all the categories were only appointed for a trial period. It was only after one year of an employee’s successful work that their appointment was made definitive. Permanent tenure meant, in addition to secured advancement in remuneration, that employees were integrated into a pension fund, which assured their social security after finishing active work.
In this period, steam locomotives achieved immense progress: new bogie arrangement, using divided expansion and later overheated steam. Besides for these locomotives, the first electric traction vehicles appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. The emergence of train lavatories necessitated to enable safe passage through and between the coaches. Individual heating was substituted with steam-engine heating. Gas and later electric lighting began to be used in coach interiors. Increasing the transport speed required the improvement of coach bogies (elimination of wheelset solid steering etc.). In addition to the telegraph, telephones, which appeared on railways in the 1880s, began to be used. The security of the train motion was increased by use of electro-mechanic security devices with multiple-arm semaphores and by the implementation of interlocking between the railroad switches and relevant signals. Rupping’s method of pressure impregnation with tar oil prolonged the service life of wooden railway sleepers. As for the structure of railway switches, spring tongues and hook locks emerged. Electric lighting has been used on railway workplaces since the end of the 19th century.
4. Between the two World Wars (1918-1939)
The railway administration of the newborn state was entrusted to Czecho-Slovak State Railways (ČSD). The regional headquarters of the ČSD, which were subordinated to the Ministry of Railways in Prague, were established in Bratislava and Košice. The most significant objective of the railway administration was to adjust the Czecho-Slovak railway network to change the transport conditions in the new state and to complete the nationalization of railways.
The transformation of the transport conditions after the formation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic required the building of the railways Bánovce n. Ondavou - Vojany and Zvolen - Krupina. A comprehensive plan of finishing the construction of Slovakia’s railway network was determined by Law No. 235/1920. In accordance with this Law, the railways Zvolen - Krupina, Veselí na Moravě - Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Handlová - Horná Štubňa, Červená Skala - Margecany, Púchov - Horní Lideč, Zlaté Moravce - Zbehy were built and the construction of the partially built track Diviaky - Banská Bystrica was finished.
Problems with the nationalization of the Slovak local railways were the reason for the delays experienced in their tariff calculation. These problems economically disadvantaged Slovakia throughout the 1920s. The speed limit for freight trains was raised to 70 km/h, thanks to the implementation of continuous deceleration in the 1930s. Significant progress in passenger transport was reached at the end of the 1920s, thanks to its motorisation and the completion of the train lines with additional bus lines. The Munich Agreement, especially the Vienna Award, paralysed transport on the Slovak railways. The situation that had emerged was mastered by reinforcing automobile transport and by concluding toll contracts with the Hungarian Railways Company (MÁV) and Polish Railways Company (PKP).
The personnel conditions on the Czecho-Slovak railways did not significantly differ from the situation before the disintegration of the Monarchy.
After the First World War, simpler and more effective steam locomotives from Czech locomotive factories appeared on Slovak railways. Railcars with combustion engines and the mechanical or electrical transmission of kinetic energy began to run on Slovak railways at the end of the 1920s. As for the passenger coach construction, wooden frames were replaced with all-metal ones in the beginning of the 1930s. Roller bearings raised the reliability of coaches. The improved operational railway traffic control enabled the implementation of automatic railway telephone systems in the 1920s. As for the sleepers fastening, nails were substituted by clamping plates. The first attempts with thermite welding were carried out. First, large reinforced concrete bridges were built. As for the railway stations’ architecture, domestic and regional influences were much more visible.
5. The period of Slovak Railways (1939-1945)
The first sovereign Slovak state was founded on 14 March 1939. The railways of the newborn state were entrusted to the state company Slovak Railways (SŽ), which were subordinated to the Ministry of Transport and Public Works. The damaged organic character of Slovakia’s railway network after the Vienna Award determined the most important transport policy objectives of the newborn state: immediately provide transport services, at least temporarily, for those regions that became inaccessible to domestic railways; build alternative railways as soon as possible.
Already in 1939 and 1940 the construction of short connecting tracks, which enabled the bypass of the occupied towns of Lučenec and Michaľany, was finished. Works on new-planned railways Kapušany pri Prešove - Strážske, Plavecký Mikuláš - Jablonica, Slavošovce - Lubeník, Revúca – Tisovec, later Podolínec - Orlov and Hronská Dúbrava - Banská Štiavnica intensively began. Only the first of them was finished.
High intensity of railway freight transport on the SŽ was caused by rather favourable conditions during the war. Numerous seasonal transfers of agricultural and industrial workers from Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Russia, who were headed for work in Germany, were typical for passenger transport. Extra trains with soldiers on leave aboard, who were travelling from the Balkan Front to Germany or back to the Front were passing through Slovakia. In 1942, Germany began Jewish deportations from Slovakia.
The lack of employees, which had been caused by the departure of many Czech railway workers to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was being solved by engaging railwaymen from the territories that were occupied by Fascist Hungary. The Slovak Railways had been relieved of their responsibility for the health insurance system for railway staff, which was subsequently entrusted to the Workers’ Social Insurance Company. This change was considered the most significant in terms of the social field.
After the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising in August 1944, Central Slovakia virtually became an independent territory with its own administration. The highest railway management authority on the territory that was controlled by the partisans was the Railway Operation Administration, which was located in the town of Zvolen. In addition to ensuring railway transport on the partisan territory, the railwaymen provided the partisan army with very significant help - three armoured trains.
As for the steam locomotive construction, valve gears and steel fireboxes came into focus. The implementation of one-axle bogies (Rybák type), which enabled to lengthen the wheelbase over the usual 8 m, was a significant modernisation in two-axle passenger coaches. Freight wagons that were delivered to Slovakia from Germany brought plunger buffers, which better resisted the significant forces acting on heavy freight wagons.
6. The second period of the ČSD (1945-1992)
After the end of the war, the principal objective of the ČSD was to restore operations on the seriously damaged railways in Slovakia. The communist coup d’état in February 1948 was the beginning of the intensive sovietisation of Czecho-Slovakia. All of the railways were nationalized. The Ministry of Transport managed all the railway affairs until 1989, when the Central Directorate of the ČSD was established. This measure separated the state and railway administrations.
The predominant majority of investments were related to the economic orientation of Czecho-Slovakia towards the Soviet Union. A much more intensive exploitation of the railway Čierna nad Tisou - Košice - Žilina - Bohumín required the construction of the second track to be finished and to build a transloading station in Čierna nad Tisou. Furthermore, this railway was electrified. Connecting railways Turňa nad Bodvou - Rožňava and Maťovce - Haniska (a broad gauge railway) were built in order to disburden the railway Čierna nad Tisou - Košice - Žilina – Bohumín. The electrification of the II. main railway artery (in Slovakia: Kúty - Bratislava - Štúrovo) was carried out at the end of the 1960s. The vast modernisation of the High Tatras railways and the completion construction works on the railways Dúbrava - Banská Štiavnica and Podolínec - Orlov required further investments.
Freight transport was concentrated on the I. and II. main railway arteries. A sharp increase in railway transport performance rapidly exhausted the existing transport capacities, railroads and rolling stock. The tension between the transport needs and the technical possibilities of the railways became chronic. The industrialisation of Slovakia had a significant influence on the rise in railway passenger transport. Its decrease began in the 1970s because of the individual automobile transport development.
The most significant change in the personnel field was the abolition of permanent tenure in 1950. Since then, remuneration, pension savings and accident insurance for the railway staff were guided by general regulations. After the contradictory changes of the first half of the 1950s, the Ministry of Transport was only liable for health care.
From the beginning of the 1960s, steam locomotives were systematically being replaced with electric and diesel traction locomotives. Electronic features have been used in locomotives since the 1970s. Semi-lowering windows, horn plateless bogies (Goerlitz) and electric heating were being implemented in the construction of passenger coaches. The freight wagons fleet was completed with high-capacity four-axle wagons with roller bearings. A unified automatic telephone railway network was created in the second half of the 1950s. Relay station security devices and automatic track security devices with signal transfer to the driver’s cab began to be used. Remote-controlled pneumatic brake devices were being installed in large marshalling yards. Seamless rails have been utilised since the 1950s. Mechanisation, which was penetrating all fields of railway track construction and maintenance, was a characteristic phenomenon of the post-war times. As for bridge construction, welding has already begun to be used. Reinforced concrete prefabricates gained extensive application. Prefabricated construction features progressively substituted conventional materials in the field of railway buildings’ construction. Glass and steel were also used to a higher extent. The railway hall became the dominant feature among all the railway buildings.
Literature
KUBÁČEK, Jiří et al.: History of the Railways in Slovakia. 1. edition, Bratislava : ŽSR, 1999. 462 s. ISBN 80-968140-4-4
