information on pre-WW1 romanian railroad sought

[dead-cat]

well the "Pester Lloyd" (Budapest) published the figures on Oct. 2nd too.
they are quoting (translated from german) the "hungarian Tel.-Korr.-Bureau"(?) as source for the "official communiquee" (Amtlicher Bericht), which is dated Oct. 1st 1916 noon (specified) and recived afternoon 6 o'clock.

the numbers quoted are:

around 3000 prisoners
18 artillery pieces
1 aricraft hangar with 2 aircraft
10 locomotives
300 railcars (with ammunition)
200 ammunition coaches (probably horse-drawn, unclear because "wagen" can be used as railcar, automobile, coach in german)
70 automobiles
200 bagage coaches
1 hostpital train
other war related items.

the issue from Oct 1st. does contain the press release (from the general staff of the army(A-H.)) recived from the "Budapest correspondence" concerning the outcome of the battle but does not yet mention any figures. the release is dated sept. 30 noon and recived by Pester Lloyd afternoon 6 o'clock.

so i'd say it's normal that it appears only the following day since it probably went to print at night.

[Carol I]

According to my source there were indeed two official communiqués on the "German" side: the Austrian one from 30 September and the German one from 1 October. And, as you said, the definite figures of the war booty from the fall of Sibiu appeared only in the communiqué of 1 October.

It seems that we speak about the same press releases as there is no conflict between our pieces of information. The only difference is that your sources give the precise figures that I was lacking. Thanks for the contemporary references.

[dead-cat]

a very kind soul posted this link a few weeks ago on axishistory:

http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno

scans of the newspapers can be read at the link above, if you understand german and are able to read printed sütterlin(gothic).

seems to be a great source for readings about the more obscure details, if the sources can be trusted that is. they hardly publish casualties (never give own figures) but i tend to regard figures relating captures of war material as thrustworthy. have to research if the prisoner figures given are reliable.

i'm not yet through reading the december issues, i'm hoping to find figures for captured rolling stock from the entire campaign.

there are also very intresting pieces of information about the use of monitors on the danube, stuff i have yet to find elsewhere, since riverline warfare is mainly ignored in most ww1 publications. maybe we can match the info with romanian and russian sources and get a more complete and reliable picture.

[Carol I]

Thanks for the link, but German "is like Greek to me" . I'll have to rely on those that know it :wink: .

I have some figures of casualties on both sides in several fights from the Romanian campaign, but I need some time to extract them. But then we can cross-check this information against yours in order to build a reliable picture.

Also about captures of railway rolling stock, on 23 October 1916 the Bulgarian and German troops entering Costanta have captured "500 (presumably empty) railway trucks and several locomotives".

[dead-cat]

hm. this time we probably have the same source. both newspapers mention the general staff comuniquee with the same words in the Oct. 26th issue quoting ("bulgarian general staff"):

"...captured 500 railcars and several locomotives. the railyard remained intact." looks like they counted the railcars to 500 but failed to count the locomotives. maybe some of them were damaged and they didn't decide wether to count those or not. the following issues don't pick the subject up. i'm afraid that's as reliable as it can get, missing accurate romanian sources.

the Oct. 25th issue mentions "large amounts of rolling stock" captured in Medgidia but fails to give any figures (again bulgarian general staff).
also the BG. general staff informs that on Oct. 23th, 5 locomotives and 200 railcars were captured. i wonder if those are the "large amounts" or if they represent a different capture since fighting around a place called "Rasova" is mentioned. don't have a decent map handy

[Carol I]

I found only that Medgidia was occupied on 23 October 1916 (same day as Constanta), but no mention of an important rolling stock capture there.

Rasova is on the Danube, about 15 km south of Cernavoda. I doubt that there was a railway there. Its evacuation however around 23-24 October led to the fall of Cernavoda on 25 October.

[petru]

QUOTE

I have also heard of the railway rolling-stock captured by the Austro-Hungarians after the battle of Sibiu, but without numbers. It seems that they were part of the supply force of the Romanian army that could not be retreated as the railway line was one of the first objectives to fall into the hands of the Bavarian Alpine Corps supposed to close the encirclement of Romanian forces.

Parts of supply trains for the 13 Div. were captured, I suppose still north of the Carpathians (they didn’t reach Turnu Rosu pass), but the infantry retreated over the Suru and Scara mountains. I think on order was issued on the 27 September (in the evening of the second day of fighting) for the trains to get to the mouth of the gorge, just in case. In the evening of 29 the Romanians were in general retreate. The whole 23 division (or what was left from it) retreated through the Olt gorge. The Bavarian Alpine Corp had the mission to capture the railroad and to close the pass, but they didn’t achieve that. The pass was under their fire, and they caused panic several times and in several places (Lotrioara mouth, at the Lunci canton, 1.5 km south of Lunci etc.) 20th Division (General Praporgescu) was able to keep the communication open. I think a number of couches were left in the gorge too.

[Dénes]

I don't think this steam locomotive has anything to do with Rumania at all, nevertheless it's a nice photo.


This one is from W.W. 2, taken in Poland:

[dead-cat]

i only hava book about german locomotives but i didn't find any them. the above could be from 1900-1905 (comparable to the prussian G4)
the below one isn't a german loco either, they used that funnel type very seldom. both might Austro-Hungarian.

thanx for posting the pics.

[Carol I]

On the site of the Romanian Railways National Company, there is a page with images and descriptions (unfortunately the descriptions are only in Romanian) of some of the steam locomotives used on the Romanian railways along the years. They span a time period including both World Wars.

Also on the same site, one can read (also in Romanian only) some general facts about the locomotives and the history of the Romanian railways.

[dead-cat]

as a child i've seen many of them still in use.

looks most of the pre-WW1 locos were of prussian origin and a few from MAV. and while we are at it the "7311 TIP 1Ct-n2 HEN 7640/1906" is a prussian T9.3 not T93.

i haven't found the loco from the pic among them though.
oddly enough all of the locos with more than triple coupling are not from Austria-Hungary.

[Carol I]

As I child I have also seen some of them in use.

And the error you have pointed out is not the only one. As an example, the image of "231.065 PACIFIC TIP 2C1-h4 HEN/18999/1922" is in fact that of a small marshalling locomotive. But in spite of these errors the source is quite good.

Maybe you would like to take a look at http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/pix/ro/steam/pix.html for more images and descriptions of the Romanian steam locomotives. This quite comprehensive source has English descriptions.

Also interesting is http://www.enzia.com/Pages/Railpg1.html that has images of some locomotives not shown in the other two sources.