History
The line that is no longer there
For eighty-five years, trains ran through Czarny Dunajec. The tracks are gone, but the embankment remains, and it carries the tarmac you ride to us on today.
1904
Opening of the line
The line was built in the days of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. A standard gauge railway, with the usual 1435 mm track, linked Nowy Targ with Trstená in Slovakia. So it was not a narrow gauge railway, as is sometimes repeated, but a full railway line.
Through Trstená it joined the monarchy's network, and through that the connections to Vienna and Budapest.
Where it led
Vienna and Budapest
For the Podhale region it was real access to the world. From the small station in Czarny Dunajec you could reach the capitals of the empire, changing trains along the way.
Every day
People and goods
Passenger and goods trains ran here. The main exports were timber, peat and cattle, which is what Podhale traded in at the time. The station lived by the rhythm of the timetable.
After the war
The border closes
After the Second World War, cross-border traffic died out. Trains from Nowy Targ only reached Podczerwone, and beyond that the track stood empty. A line built to connect two countries had lost its reason to exist.
1989
The last train
Passenger trains stopped running here in the 1980s, and the last goods trains reached Czarny Dunajec until 1989. In 1991 the line was closed and the tracks were removed. After eighty-five years, all that remained was an empty trackbed running through the fields.
Today
Route around the Tatras
The embankment of the old line was paved. It became one of the busiest sections of the Route around the Tatras, and railway bridges and mileposts still stand along the way. The old station buildings survived too, including the one in Podczerwone.
And in Czarny Dunajec, because that is where you will find us. The building has been restored and is a stop once more. Only the means of transport you arrive by has changed.
Take a look inside
There is no waiting room or ticket office inside any more. There is a new restaurant with a warm wooden interior and tables where the whole family sits comfortably. The perfect place for a Sunday lunch or a long stop after the ride.
The illustrations on this page are contemporary graphics made for this website, not archive photographs. They are meant to capture the mood of the era, not to document specific people or events.
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