Slovenia Cover29/09/1997 Maribor d 2002
Stamp ;Locomotive SZ 03-002
Face Value ; 80
Size ; 40,32 x 28,80
On the 27th June 1997 it will be 140 years since the opening of the railway line Ljubljana - Trieste, the last phase in the construction of a railway link between Vienna and the main seaport of the Austro - Hungarian Empire. With this the project of the Southern State Railway was made a reality, a 577 kilometer long railway line, for which construction had already commenced in 1839.
In 1850 work on the line Ljubljana towards the coast began, the last 145 kilometres to Trieste. During construction many difficulties were confronted as the Ljubljana marsh demanded an unbelievable amount of material to fortify the railway embankments. A number of problems also occured in the building of the railway line over the Karst region. Due to the diverse land a number of building projects were necessary including viaducts, cuts, embankments and tunnels. The biggest construction was the Borovnica viaduct, which with its length of 584 metres and height of 38 metres even exceeded the viaduct built on the Semmering ( where the line was finished in 1954). Five million specially shaped bricks from the Borovnica brickworks were built into the viaducts arches ( the viaduct was shaped like a bow). Stone pillars were built on the marsh land, based on oak pilots. These pilots proved fateful for the viaduct because in the course of time the floor of the subterranean sunk lower and the oak pilots began to rot, making the viaduct unsafe. During the second World War the viaduct was also very badly damaged. Due to the rotting pilots renovation was impossible and a by-pass railway line had to be built. Today only one remaining pillar reminds us of the viaduct.
During construction of the basic railway network the State found itself in great financial difficulties and was forced to put the railway up for sale.The famous and disreputable Southern Railway, with its hardly one year old line from Vienna to Triest, was taken-over by a private company that had foreign capital participation. With exceptional vitality the railway network was added onto and expanded so that by the end of the century it completely managed the traffic space south of Vienna. In accordance with need, a line of excellent types of locomotives were developed, and without doubt the most famous "series" was the 109. Here this locomotive was renamed the JDZ 03.
LOCOMOTIVE SZ 03-002
In the history of the railway in Slovenia it is possible to find only two types of locomotives, and both of them were both constructed especially for our conditions, type of coal and pulling characteristics. These were the series 03 from 1910 and series 06 from 1930.
Type 03 locomotive, from the series SB 109, ordered by the Southern Railway was designed especially for the Ljubljana - Trieste railway line, on which the locomotives then used were not powerful enough for the ever heavier express trains. With their achievement the Viennese designers, Ernst Prossy and Hans Steffan, set a turning-point in the building of locomotives. The new locomotive was unusually big, exceptionally powerful and designed with an elegance unknown at that time. Due to is quality the 109 series was quickly used on other Southern Railway lines, and also in Hungary. By 1914 forty-four locomotives had been constructed, with an additional nine being made for Hungary, and between 1927 and 1930 another four were ordered making a grand total of 57. After the first World War 15 of these locomotives belonged to us. They were used all the time in Slovenia and were highly regarded by engine drivers and proved to be very popular with them.
Locomotive 03-002, with the number 109.38 Southern Railways, was made in 1914 in the Viennese locomotive factory in Floridsdorf. It was among those locomotives which in 1918 belonged to the new state of the Southern Slavs. The locomotive's present number was given to it in 1933 when a new, unified number system was introduced for all locomotives in Yugoslavia. The locomotive was in use until 1968 when, as the first of its kind, it was put under the protection of the Slovene Railway museum. For years the locomotive was kept in a railway shed and it was anticipated that eventually it would be used to pull a museum train. This finally happened in 1987. This event gained Slovenia a great deal of attention from foreign railway fans and an award for cultural-historical awareness was collected. In the same year the Hungarians did likewise with their museum locomotive of the same type, the 109.109 and some years later the Austrians put into function their 109.13. In Vienna in 1995 and last year in Celje on the 150th anniversary of the railway in Slovenia the three "sisters" were brought together, the last from a family which once numbered over 50 of these wonderful machines.
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