This album shows the photos of three, more or less successful photo trips to the Eastern edge of the European Union, Matovce.
Everything in motion – The area around the border now resembles a disturbed beehive. The trains carry iron ore to the East Slovakian Steelworks, with several trains running daily, which is nothing unusual. However, the grain has only recently started coming this way; before the outbreak of the open war, it was transported by ship across the Black Sea. (Maťovce / Slovakia, 14 December 2022, 11:27 CET)
Drahnov
Nižna Mišla / Slovakia, 14 December 2022, 13:37 CET
Nižná Myšľa / Slovakia, 14 December 2022, 13:53 CET
Nižná Myšľa / Slovakia, 14 December 2022, 13:54 CET
Twins in their fourties - A week has passed since our last visit. The snow has melted, but the rail freight traffic is still going strong. The Slovak freight train with tank wagons is heading towards Čierna nad Tisou. The two-section, 3 kV locomotives, nicknamed Dvojička, are more modern compared to the 125 series. They can be found on the standard-gauge main line of North Slovakia, between the Czech Republic and the Ukrainian border. (Streda nad Bodrogom / Slovakia, 20 December 2022, 7:54 CET)
Freshly painted – The ChME3 3669 has become redundant on the Latvian Railway. After its refurbishment, it is now leased by a Slovak private railway, and occasionally works on the broad gauge. The fresh markings on the freight car are already linked to the war. After the closure of the Russian-Ukrainian border, the Ukrainian Railway simply considered the Russian or Belarusian freight cars stranded in Ukraine as their own. (Maťovce / Slovakia, 20 December 2022, 9:49 CET)
Matovce
Csaba and the team – We're here near the Slovak-Ukrainian border, but this is pure Hungarian countryside, and all the railway workers are Hungarian. Of course, they all speak excellent Slovak, otherwise they couldn’t work for the Slovak railway, but among themselves, even while working, only Hungarian is spoken. (Maťovce / Slovakia, 20 December 2022, 9:49 CET)
Matovce
Where humans feel safe - the drivers cab, a small place with cold, hard a moving steel structures around. (Matovce / Slovakia, 20 December 2022, 11:03 CET)
It is time to start
Here comes the apex predator
Little Road Retro
Manipulák
Glorious Kazakh Coal come to Europa - The Vojany Thermal Power Plant, operating in Eastern Slovakia, purchases Kazakh coal for electricity generation, with a distance of just under 4,500 kilometers. The Ukrainian-Russian border has been closed due to the war, and the new route avoids Russia. The longer transport distance and multiple transfers provide a clear explanation for the rising prices of energy carriers. The coal-laden wagons can still be transferred by rail ferry across the Caspian Sea, but in Georgia, the coal is transferred to regular ships, and in Bulgaria, to standard-gauge freight cars, before finally arriving on the standard-gauge tracks in Matovce from Hungary. So why do we still see broad-gauge wagons in the picture? Here’s the biggest joke: for the last few kilometers, the coal has to be reloaded into broad-gauge wagons because the unloading equipment at the power plant was built for broad-gauge tracks. (Vojany / Slovakia, 20 December 2022, 13:48)
Almost the longest night of the year begins
Matovce
The next silly border - It is the diesel's job to pull freight trains across the Hungarian-Slovak border because the railway is not electrified between the two border stations. In defense of the Záhony transshipment station, they consciously tried to undermine the route through Sátoraljaújhely, but it is still too good! The Slovak private railway operates its freight between Čierna nad Tisou and Bratislava via Hungary, using the Sátoraljaújhely-Miskolc-Hatvan-Vác-Štúrovo route.
Just like two giant sisters
Waiting for a second chance - Trebišov / Slovakia, 9 February 2023, 12:59 CET
Transloading station Trebišov
Trebišov
Ugly