Horská železnice Liberec - Jelenia Góra na starých pohlednicích – Navrátil Martin (2017)

This full-color publication, filled with historical postcards, photographs, and plans of railway buildings from the first half of the twentieth century, is dedicated to the nostalgic railway connecting the Czech Jizera Mountains with the Polish side of the Krkonoš. The authors aim, through this (already the ninth) publication, to remind us not only of the nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian (and in this case also Prussian) and our First Republic railways, but also to commemorate the mastery of designers, technicians, and workers who built and put into operation the Jizera railway from Liberec through Tanvald to Kořenov and its Krkonoš continuation through Harrachov to Lower Silesian Jelenia Góra (formerly Hirschberg) more than a century ago. The section of the track between Tanvald and Kořenov is the steepest and the only standard gauge cog railway in the Czech Republic. Using the Abt system cogwheel, the train climbs 235 meters in less than seven kilometers between Tanvald (466 m above sea level) and Kořenov (701 m above sea level)! The track is equipped with cogwheel strips in the track bed on three steepest sections with a total length of 4.4 km, allowing cog trains to overcome the greatest gradient of up to 58 per mille by having the locomotive's cogwheels engage with the teeth of the cog rail. The construction of this mountain line in...