Seven decades and a half of "Sargan eight" 
    The wars delayed comstruction
  To the railway by auction
     Time limit of three years
  The state finished the "eight"
      Departure of "Cira" into an unmerited retirement
  Simbolic meaning of number 8



 



















































  

               -- Seven decades and a half of "Sargan eight" --
Two decades after the construction of Moravska raiklway Belgrade - Nis, marking 
out the rout Stalac - Krusevac - Kraljevo - Cacak - Uzice - Sargan - Vardiste started.
This transversal railway in Serbia was devided into four sections: Stalac - Cacak, Cacak - Uzice, Uzice - Sargan and Sargan - Vardiste. Field works on marking out the railway lasted for half a year and they were finished till the end of 1903. Plans were made for a narrow-gage railroad of 760 mm.
At the time of marking out the Westmoravska railway Stalac - Uzice - Bosnian 
border, Austria - Hungary was constructing a military - strategy important railway 
Sarajevo - Vardiste, with one spure track Mrdjedja - Uvac. This eastern Bosnian 
railway was 167 km long. It was passing through 99 tunnels total length nearly 
13 km, which made 8 % of total lenght of the railway. From Sarajevo the rout 
first led through the river Milacka valley to Romanija mountian, then trough
the river Praca valley from Ustipraca, trough the Drina river valley, from Visegrad through the river Rzav valley to Visegrad. It was opened on July 1 ^st 1906.
Railway Stalac - Uzice - Mokra Gora started building in 1907. An agreement was
given from Austria - Hungary for conecting this railway at Visegrad to already
finished railway Sarajevo - Vardiste. In spite of a customs war (1906- 1910)
Austria - Hungary government approved the conection of west Serbia railway with 
the eastern Bosnian railway to prevent the construction of the Adriatic transversale actoss the Turkish territory.
Stalac - Uzice railway was finished in 1912. just before the beginning of the first Balcanian war. The first train arived to Uzice on June 16 ^th 1912. about 1 PM, decorated with flags, greeted by guns. Engine driver Slobodan Savic, a former locksmith, brought that festive train to the Uzice. He turned on the whistle of a locomotive at Vrelo and brought the train whistling to the new built railway station in the village. There were about 2000 people at the station to welcome the train. Finally Uzice got its railway.
The railway to Stalac was 167,8 km long.

              -- The wars delayed construction--                                              ...
            The beginning of Balcan wars, and later the First World War delayed the 
const ruction of the last part os West serbian railway Uzice- Mokra Gora - Bosnian border.
Occupation of Serbia in the First World war by Austria - Hungary caused an attempt of occupier to connect Vardiste and Uzice by a railway at the begining of 1916. Austria - Hungary considered Serbia had Finally entered this monarchy.
The works on the Railway started in spring 1916. on the rout planned by Austria - Hungary engineers. The work advanced well and 9 km of railway was built to the foot of Sargan. In Mokra Gora the railway station building was built. Construction problems appeared how to ovedcome Sargan massive. Today all the details of occuper's Sargan railway are not known. We know that the longest tunnel was dug under the hill Budim on Sargan. When the great tragedy happened ( one shift of workers was buried alive because of rockslide in the tunnel) the works were stopped. Russian and Italian prisoners of war perished. We don't know the exact number of them, but according to Mokra Gora people's talking there were abour 200 workers in the shift. There is a modest monument made of concrete on the hill Budim reminding us of that awful tragedy, but of all the text only the figures 1916, the year of construction remained.
Of this priject a ready route of 9 km of railway from Vardiste to the foot of 
Sargan was left.
When the first World war ended they started finishing the rest part of the 
railway Uzice - Sargan - Mokra Gora on the line Stalac- Vardiste.
The project of this railway was made by the engineers: Hugo Kajnel ( the former
inspector of Bosnia - Hercegovina railways) as one of the planners of this railway 
and its realizer at the time of the former monarchy, then Andra Stanic, Ranisav Avramovic, Milorad Milivojevic, Vaso Markovic, who, as former engineers on this 
railway were the first to start the work on this route from the Serbian side.
The most interesting section of the route was related to hight difference between 
Mokra Gora valley and Sargan saddle. That problem was solved by the famous Sargan 
"eight". 
              -- Gething the railway by auction--                                        ...
A great contribution to the construction of this railway was also given by the engineer D. Karakasevic, the head of the section for the construction of the railway from Kramna to Mokra Gora, and by the engineer Milos Skakic, who operated on Mokra Gora section of the railway. The rour of this railway from Uzice led through the river DJetina valley as far as Sargan, withaut taking account of a little turning away of this river in Kremna valley. On this part the maximum ascent was 14 promiles. Fronm the station Sargan - Vitasi to Kotroman the engineers successfully solved the hight difference on the raiklway between these two limit spots, 354 metres, with the maximum ascent of the railway of 18 promiles.
On the vertcal profile of the rout the railway started from Uzice with 400 m hight above see level, in Stapare it was 521 m, in Vrutci 584 m, in Bioska 636 m, in Kremna 743 m, at the railway station Sargan - Vitas 806 m, and it reached its peak in the longest Sargan watershed tunnel 807 m hight above see level, on Jatari 701 m, in Mokra Gora 567 m and in tunnel 53, on the former Bosnia and Hercegovina border its hight was 453 m above see level.
The construction of Sargan railway, as we most often call this section between
Uzice and Vardiste, was started by Sarajevo office on March 1 st 1912. Because
of slow advancing of work on the railway minister of traffic of the Kingdom SHS 
decided to change the way of construction of this railway, and on October 9 ^th 
1921 by auction the railway was given to be constructed to the enterprise " Feniks", the cost from Uzice to the tunnel in Sargan was 35.810.835 dinars.
The section from Sargan to Mokra Gora, including the tunnel under Sargan was
given to the enterprise Nikola Plavsic for the sum of 41. 525. 377. dinars.
The limit was April 24 ^th 1924. The section of the railway Uzice - Sargan was
also very difficult for construction, especially on the rocky part of the river DJetinja between Uzice and Stapari, and between Bioska and Kremna. On this section several tunnels were built, as well as several supporting walls and bridges, some of them outstanding construction objects like the stone and iron bridges on the river DJetinja in Uzice and at the entrance to Kremna valley.
22 tunnels were dug through on this section. The length of the route was 35 km:
Uzice - Stapari 8,9 km, Stapari - Vrutci 5,5 km, Vrutci - Bioska 7,5 km, Bioska -
Kremna 8,1 km and Kremna - Sargan - Vitas 5 km.
   
         -- Time limit of three years --                                                             ...
The enterprise "Feniks " brought its section from Uzice to Kremna, 30 km long,
namely to Vitas 35 km long successfully to an end thanks to its technical 
menager engineer Bora Radenkovic. But the enterprise "Feniks " couldn't respect 
the agreed time limit of April 24 ^th 1924. partly by the fault of the Main office of construction, but mainly because of devaluation of dinar at that time. "Time limit was prolonged to June 30 ^th 1924. first, and later to January 30 ^th 1925. so that the construction lasted three years and three months". The auction price of 35.810.832 dinars of Sargan - Uzice section reached 93.413.000 dinars finally. The section heads who were in charge of works on this section of the railway were the engineers: Milivoje Raskovic, Nikola DJuric and Niko Martinovic.
The section Sargan - Mokra Gora - Vardiste was very difficult and provocative technically and architecturally. We have mentined that this section had been
started by Austria - Hungary in 1916. when 9 km of the lower part was done. The 
enterprise N.Plavsic used the works which had already been done and they laid 
the railway gage as far as the foot of Sargan.
The spot to which this gage was laid, is colled "the ninth kilometer." It was 
taken for the seat of construction objects of Plavsic snterprise. Here the cable
railway was installed, it had three spur tracks: to the longest tunnel on
Sargan- 1825 m, to the railway station Jatare- 1926 m and the third was leading 
to the Kamisina river valley- 1400 m, that was in total- 4491 m. "Cable railway
had the capacity of 5 goods wagons per hour of 40 per day and about 12.000 
wagons of building material had transported by it ."
On the place of the so colled "ninth kilpmetre " and in the river Kamesina valley big work sites appeared with barracs made for the workers lodging.
Besides the cable railway Plavsic enterprise also had rock crushing and send making machines, a sawmill, as well as various buildings for living in. "Great capital had been invested in all these buildings and machines and when the time come for the great work on the railway to start, the enterprise became short of money and the construction could't advance as it had been planned. After several repeted warnings the constraction work was taken away from this enterprise on July 13 ^th 1923 and was finished by the state by the State board.
As the finishing works on the railway Vardiste- Sargan had been taken away from 
Plavsic enterprise, "the minister of traffic formed a Board on August 20 ^th 1923 
in which he included Mr. Nikola DJuric, the head of Construction Office,
Mr. Hugo Kajnc and Mr. Nikola DJuric as inspectors. In the supervizory board 
there were Mr. Ognjen Kuzmanovic, constraction menager, Mr. Vlada Babovic,
deputy menager and Mr. DJoka Jeftic, the head of the main office.

          -- The state finished the "eight"--                                                       ...
The board for finishing the construction of Sargan "eight" brought the work on 
the given route of 22,8 km to the end successfully and the first train passed by 
the new railway on January 25 ^th 1925. The rilway station on this route were:
Sargan Vitas - Jatare 7,5 km, Jatare - Mokra Gora 7,8 km, and Mokra Gora - Vardiste
7,5 km. The station Jatare was used only as an intersection station, there was 
never sold any train ticket.
Beside several passages, bridges and supporting walls, 22 tunnels were built,
of which the Sargan tunnel was 1666 metres long.
This narrow-gage railway had a great economic and military- strategy meaning for 
the newly established state The Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, especially for Uzice villages which it passed throught. The railway from Uzice to Mokra Gora employed about 500 workers, either on maintaning works or as the traffic stuff on the railway.

                                                              
-- construction of Sargan "eight" -- "cira" a turist attraction -- railway station Mokra Gora -- railway station Sargan -
Vitasi -- forest railway -- railway station Jatare -- railway links

-- the map of Mokra Gora -- natural characteristics of Mokra Gora -- waters -- herbs -- hunting, fishing -- history, necropolis, churches  -- school -- tar, Kotroman -- homeland holideys -- football, relly memorial -- contact --