Volunteers help to maintain zig-zag railway

FOR 14 YEARS, volunteers from Slovakia and the Czech Republic have helped to maintain the historical back-swath – or zig-zag – forest railway in the open-air museum at Vychylovka, in the Kysuce region of Slovakia. Fans from the civic association Klub romantikov úzko-rozchodnej železnice Oravy a Kysúc / Club of the Romantics of the Narrow-gauge Railway of Orava and Kysuce (KRÚŽOK) repaired the rails in early August.

Vychylovka's historical back-swath railwayVychylovka's historical back-swath railway (Source: Sme-Ján Krošlák)

FOR 14 YEARS, volunteers from Slovakia and the Czech Republic have helped to maintain the historical back-swath – or zig-zag – forest railway in the open-air museum at Vychylovka, in the Kysuce region of Slovakia. Fans from the civic association Klub romantikov úzko-rozchodnej železnice Oravy a Kysúc / Club of the Romantics of the Narrow-gauge Railway of Orava and Kysuce (KRÚŽOK) repaired the rails in early August.

“They helped mainly to replace the old sleepers but also to clean the rails’ surroundings. Members of KRÚŽOK have been coming here for several years; Slovaks, Czechs and Moravians meet here. Some of them keep coming regularly and we have befriended them, some are here for the first time. They include students, even promising medical students, but also whole families tend to come,” Janka Berešová, head of the administration of the Historical Back-Swath Forest Railway in Vychylovka, told the SITA newswire.

Also in Vychylovka, the Kysuce Museum manages the Museum of Kysuce Village. Members of the Youth Organisation FivePs help to maintain and preserve this open-air attraction. This year, they painted the shingled roofs and cleaned the premises. In 2009, the Kysuce Museum in Čadca and its four branches elsewhere were visited by record 78,154 people. The biggest success was the back-swath forest railway and the museum in Vychylovka, which jointly attracted almost 63,000 visitors, the most since the museum opened in 1971. After a two-year break, the railway started operating again last year to the first back swath. In the high season, it transported almost 32,000 tourists.


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