Karakó Bridge

When the railway section Sepsiszentgyörgy - Csíkszereda was opened, the construction of the section Csíkszereda - Gyímes was already in full progress, its trail having been designated previously. Connected to this, there exist several anecdotes. According to one of these, the Armenian of Szépvíz did not want to sell estates for the purposes of railway construction. According to the other one, even the Armenians were punished by the engineers designating the trail, as they had a conflict with Armenian men at a ball because of a beautiful Armenian girl. That is why they projected the trail in such manner, that it should not cross Szépvíz, even though the railway would have been easier to construct to the Gyímes Region through Szépvíz, the whole investition could have been solved by a tunnel and smaller bridges. The designers still chose the harder solution, probably of strategically reasons, as in case of war it could have easier been made dysfunctional, a fact proven true during both World Wars. The works of construction began at 11th September, 1885, the stone-mason works were performed by Italian experts. The pillars were confectioned of plain quarry stone, and partly of carved rock with hold together by cement matter, or of just carved rock. Surface quarry mason works commenced at 6th May, 1896 and Accomplished fulfilled at 10th October of the same year. The iron structure was mounted into the pillars in December of the same year, the bridge being transferred to the customer in the same month. Meanwhile the other sections of the railway were also in construction. The 226 metrical long viaduct of the Karakó Stream was built with a height of 64 meters, resisting upon into two colossal stone pillars, with three panels, with “introductory” viaducts with walls on their both sides. This structure is one of the masterpieces of the 19th century Hungarian railway bridge-building. Its Middle, steel supported module has a length of 102 meters. The Hungarian Railways elsewhere also constructed bridges of such sized, but unlike the bridges over the Danube, this was realized in high mountains, in a location difficult to access. For its stone pillars supported in an undersoil stratified aslant could not be utilized properly the stone of the quarries in the surroundings, that was why several thousand cubic meters of stone had to be transported by carts not from a 25 but 40 km's distance, from the Hargita, respectively from the Tarhavas. It is worth mentioning that the carpenter works of scaffolding in case of viaducts of such span meant a very difficult stage of bridge-building, and so did they in this case, too. The bridge still has been built in hardly one year. The trains were dashing through the bridge till 28th August 1916, when the troops of still Romania, neutral until then, attacked unexpectedly the territory of Transylvania. They found at the Romanian-Hungarian border of Gyímes only a handful of border patrolmen and customs officers. During the retreat, the Germans blew up the bridges, except the Ladók viaduct. After bringing out the Romanian troops, the rebuilding of the viaduct began in December of 1916. During the Second World War, in the time of the new retreat, the Germans blew up all major bridges and tunnel. The intruding Romanian and Soviet troops needed the railway trail so much, so they restored the bridges temporarily. After the end of the war, already the Romanian Railways announced an application for the construction of a final bridge. The construction of the present bridge was accomplished after 14 months, at 12th of July, 1946. Under the imposant bridge, one may feel himself very small. He also can consider the pillars that were blown up. Walking through the bride, we can see the valley of the Karakó Stream in the abyss. In a fine weather, we can see very far into the middle part of the Csík Basin.