Bulgarian Railways: Septemvri - Velingrad from the driver's view

Cab ride on the narrow gauge line in the Rhodope mountain from Septemvri to Velingrad with the morning train 16103 and diesel locomotive 77 009. This is the only left narrow gauge line in Bulgaria, which is still in a regular use. The whole journey takes approximately five hours through the beautiful valleys and gorges of the Rhodope mountains with wonderful views in the last part of the journey towards Rila and Pirin mountains.
The railway was built in several stages between 1921 and 1945 with total length of 125 km (78 miles). Gauge is 760 mm. The Varvara–Pazardzhik branch line, which was closed in 2002, was 16.6 km (10.3 miles) long. Due to the characteristics of the route through the mountains, the narrow-gauge line Septemvri–Dobrinishte is also known as the Alpine railway in the Balkans. Avramovo station, situated at 1267 meters above the sea, is the highest station in the Balkans.

And now just enjoy the first part of the video - from Septemvri, a station also on the main line Sofia - Plovdiv up to Velingrad - the spa capital on the Balkans.

p.s. I'm very upset about some vibrations of the camera, which you can notice when the locomotive engine is working on a high revs, but I didn't manage to do anything about this in the editing process.

Here is also the virtual timetable:
0:25 - Septemvri station
9:35 - Pamporovo halt
12:15 - Varvara station
24:00 - Marko Nikolov halt
32:50 - Tsepina halt
39:15 - stop at the railway crossing on km 16+100
50:10 - Dolene station
1:14:05 - Kostandovo station
1:26:10 - Velingrad station

Part 2 of the route is available here:
   • Bulgarian Railways: Velingrad - Yakor...  

And finally - the last part of the route:
   • Bulgarian Railways - Yakoruda - Dobri...