Mykulychyn. The narrow-gauge carriage museum. Railway heritage of the Austrian period

Driving along the H09 highway Mukachevo-Ivano-Frankivsk-Lviv, in the centre of Mykulychyn the traveller will surely notice an old little carriage at the roadside and wonder why a railway rarity has been placed here.

 

Mykulychyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The narrow-gauge carriage museum

A service premises, or a site cabin for builders? 

An installed plaque testifies that this curiosity serves as a museum of the narrow-gauge railway.

 

Unfortunately, in the spring and summer of 2022 the cultural institution was closed, and it was not possible to view the display.

 

In Mykulychyn the narrow-gauge track was used for hauling timber. The narrow-gauge line for transporting timber from the Polianytsia Chemyhivska and Kopchyn tracts, 760 mm wide and 20.9 km long, was laid in 1911-1914.

 

The railway was used by tourists, who admired the wonderful panoramas of the surrounding mountains.

The flood of 1968 washed away the embankment and the track bed.

 

In 1919 — a reconstruction of a section of the narrow-gauge line, with the support of the charitable foundation "Vitalii Yaremchuk's Carpathian Charity". For the premises of the museum display a passenger carriage of the Kambarka Machine-Building Plant is used. The carriage is intended for conveyance on narrow-gauge railways of 750-760 mm.

 

A section of the narrow-gauge branch has been restored, on which the railway relic has been set up.

 

Six hundred metres to the north-west of the carriage, at the place where the Prut is joined by its tributary the Prutets Chemyhivskyi, one can still see the remains of the bridge that served as a crossing for the narrow-gauge line and led it to the main branch of the railway.

 

The bridge trusses are set on masonry supports. The rails were long ago dismantled, but until the destruction of the westernmost span the metal crossing with its plank decking was used for a pedestrian passage across the Prut.

 

The carriage museum is located on the main road, on Hrushevskoho Street. One would like to wish the organisers a replenishment of the museum display, the earliest possible opening of the carriage museum, and grateful visitors. 

Recommended for a visit is Ukraine's only museum of Hutsul customary symbolism, located next to the little carriage. 

Mykulychyn. The Museum of Hutsul Customary Symbolism

Coordinates: 48°24'23"N 24°36'15"E