Climbing train and 4 kilometers of teeth (7 photos)

Agree, speaking of tourist Greece, we usually immediately we remember beaches, fishing villages, monasteries and the sea - well, sometimes mountains, of course. So, a real rock climbing train is one of the unusual and atypical attractions in Greece, since we are talking about a complex technical project implemented at the end of the 19th century.





Odontotos - Greek railway among the mountains

This project is known as Odontotos - the railway, which was built to carry ore from the mountains to the sea. Actually, the road itself, built on the Peloponnese peninsula, begins in the town of Kalavryta at an altitude of 764 meters on the slopes of the ridge Aroania, and ends in the seaside Diakopton.

The road thus passes through the Vouraikos gorge, passes steep slopes, narrow tunnels and in some places goes straight along steep cliffs.

In general, for unprepared people - a complete extreme, although the views are said to be excellent in some places. total length Odontotosa reaches 23 kilometers, although part of the path goes in a straight line, which quite safe.



An old train that traveled along Odontotos - now you can see it in Diakopto

It is easy to calculate that the speed of the train is quite low, to besides, there are only a few wagons in it - relatively small and tight.

Since there is only one track, no oncoming trains can be expected costs. The whole journey takes an hour and a little, and now, as far as possible understand that tourists are the main passengers of this route.

Wagons, locomotives and locomotives for this road – are unique because they are always made to order. Because requirements for them are special.

Let's start with the fact that Odontotos is a typical narrow gauge railway. The Greeks themselves sometimes write that their road is the narrowest in the world, but this, of course, is not the case. The track width in this case is 0.75 meters - and this is not a record, but a "typical size".





Once upon a time, the wagons that traveled along Odontotos looked exactly like this

It is clear that the decision to build narrow-gauge railways was not dictated only natural, but also material conditions - tunnels in the mountains can be made narrower, it is easier to lay rails, the requirements for bridges are not so high, in general, it is easier and cheaper to build such.

By the way, the choice at the moment when the decision was made about construction took place between the railroad and the highway.

Even at that time - and the start of work dates back to 1889 year - it turned out that both the construction itself and further transportation cost less if you prefer rails. There are even calculations time: the cost of transporting one person plus a ton of goods on the train was a little more than 2 drachmas, and by car - almost 20 drachmas.



Odontotos, of course, goes on the plain for some time - the views, however, are no less beautiful

However, according to the same calculations, the cost of construction was 1 million drachmas, but in the end 3.5 million drachmas were spent. So they also "tried" on time - instead of the planned 10 months, they built 5 years. Moreover, a much longer route was approved at first - to the city of Tripolis, which is located almost in the center of the Peloponnese.

But, as we can see, with this money it was possible to build a much shorter section of the road.

In addition to laying the rails "in a straight line", the workers had to punch 6 tunnels with a total length of 200 meters and build 49 bridges length from 3 to 60 plus meters. Now it's all optional entertainment for tourists, and then - rather difficult work.



The train travels across the bridge and uses the same cog rail

They did all the work, by the way, the French - from the first calculations, before laying the tracks and the trains themselves (only in 2009, new locomotives were ordered from a Swiss company).

And now about the main feature of Odontotos. The very word oδοντωτός is translated from Greek as jagged, that is, usually so they write: Odontotos - cog railway. What does it mean? A that part of the road includes not only two standard rails, but also third, special - gear.

The first steam locomotives and then diesel locomotives were designed specifically for Odontotos - and equipped with toothed wheels that cling to the very rail and allow you to lift composition on steep slopes.



This is what the toothed rail of Odontotos looks like

In total, the road includes 3 such sections with a total length of slightly less than 4 kilometers. There are no record steep climbs here, but, I think there are enough unforgettable impressions in any case.

If you want to spice it all up with more standard tourist processes, it is worth a little lingering in Diakopto, where a depot serving trains, and something like the Odontotos Museum. For example, here is an old steam locomotive that was once used on this route. And there are just old and especially unnecessary wagons, written off after the last modernization of the road.

Here, by the way, there are ticket offices, so for tourists in any In any case, the journey through the mountains begins in this seaside town.



photo of an old abandoned wagon - but it is clear that their capacity is not very large