Paphos Life

Something for us to while away the time under lockdown. A little piece of history that some wont have known about; The Cyprus Government Railway.

The Cyprus Government Railway was a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway network that operated in Cyprus from October 1905 to December 1951. With a total length of 76 miles (122 km), there were 39 stations, stops and halts, the most prominent of which served Famagusta, Prastio Mesaoria, Angastina, Trachoni, Nicosia, Kokkinotrimithia, Morphou, Kalo Chorio and Evrychou. The CGR was closed down due to financial reasons. An extension of the railway which was built to serve the Cyprus Mines Corporation operated until 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_Government_Railway
Nicosia Station Cyprus railways 017(Color).jpg[/attachment]

Did you know that one of the old railway stations, think its at Evrychou has been renovated there’s also a Cyprus Railway Museum with railway memorabilia there too. The Cyprus C3A, at Limassol had an Industrial Archaeology Group who made several visits up there.

Dee

mike strand2 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 7:13 pm Something for us to while away the time under lockdown. A little piece of history that some wont have known about; The Cyprus Government Railway.

The Cyprus Government Railway was a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway network that operated in Cyprus from October 1905 to December 1951. With a total length of 76 miles (122 km), there were 39 stations, stops and halts, the most prominent of which served Famagusta, Prastio Mesaoria, Angastina, Trachoni, Nicosia, Kokkinotrimithia, Morphou, Kalo Chorio and Evrychou. The CGR was closed down due to financial reasons. An extension of the railway which was built to serve the Cyprus Mines Corporation operated until 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_Government_Railway

Cyprus railways 002a.jpg

Nicosia Station
Cyprus railways 032.jpg

Cyprus railways 017(Color).jpg[/attachment]

Cyprus railways 008.jpg

Interesting Mike,Makes you wonder how did the locomotives stay balanced on tracks only 2ft 6inches wide

Clearly they did stay balanced on the track. A narrow-gauge railway has a track gauge narrower than standard 1435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in). Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in) and 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in), so at 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) the CGR was somewhere in the middle of the range. The famous narrow gauge railway on the south east coast of the UK, The Romney Hythe & Dymchurch railway is but 380 mm (15 in) gauge and has carried passengers (and WWII troops) since opening in 1927.

A few more pictures

Unfortunately, it stopped operating a few weeks before I arrived in Cyprus for the first time. I would have liked to have seen it working. Originally, it did not carry passengers and its primary purpose was to transport oranges and other citrus fruits from the main growing region around Morphou and also other crops at various points en route. Important crops at that time were tobacco and cotton (Cypriot cigarettes were by law obliged to contain a percentage of Cypriot tobacco which smokers told me was foul!). The cotton grown here was of excellent quality with long silky fibres, similar to the prized Egyptian cotton. At the time, the only port was Famagusta, the endpoint of the railway. (Limassol was only built and opened as a port after 1960 and mainly after 1974)

The idea of carrying passengers came a few years after its opening. I was told that it was common for small livestock to be carried by the passengers, who were mainly peasants in the Mesaoria. They were able to stop the train and climb aboard or descend anywhere along the line, even after a few stations were built.

It was very much a necessity at the time because there were practically no roads and the only HGVs had four massive feet and a hump on its back like the last shot here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nap-Dx8P8wk

Thanks for posting, Devil.

It reminds me of when we first came to live in Cyprus 16 years ago and a friend from work wanted to come and visit. I said I wasn't too sure of the route from Lanarca (where she was landing) to Paphos. She replied that it was no problem, that she would get a train to Paphos. She couldn't quite believe there were no trains on Cyprus.