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Bosnian-gauge railways are railways withtrack gauge of760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in).[1][2] These were found extensively in the formerAustro-Hungarian Empire as a standardised form ofnarrow gauge. The name is also used for lines of the same gauge outside Bosnia, for example in Austria.[3] Similar track gauges are the2 ft 6 in (762 mm) and750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) gauge.
After a British proposal the 1878Berlin Congress permittedAustria-Hungary to occupy and governBosnia-Herzegovina instead of Turkey, the 190 km (120 mi) longBrod–Zenica military railway was built to support manoeuvres and supply troops.[4] It was completed in 1879, using the760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) temporary tracks and rolling stock used during the construction of the recently finishedTimisoara–Oršava line. TheZenica–Sarajevo extension opened in 1882, with aloading gauge the same as that used on1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge railways, which was thought to be sufficient for general traffic including passenger services.[5]
The Brod–Zenica–SarajevoBosna Bahn provided the basis for the narrow-gauge railway network which was later established in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In barely two decades a national760 mm network was built. By the 1890s this stretched throughMostar to theDalmatian border atMetković, and toGruž, a suburb ofDubrovnik, on the coast of theAdriatic Sea. This narrow gauge main line carried much heavier traffic than many of the minor1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)standard gauge main lines across the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time of their introduction, theBosnia-Herzegovian National Railways'2-4-2 express locomotives of 1894-96 were the fastest narrow gauge locomotives in Europe, with a 60 km/h (37 mph) permitted top speed.[5]
The establishment of the fast-growing network, whose length by the start of the 20th centuries exceeded 1,000 km (620 mi) making it the once largest interconnected narrow gauge network[5] in Europe, secured a high reputation for the Monarchy's engineering corps amongst international professional circles.
It was the success of the Bosnian narrow gauge net which gave impetus after the turn of the century to the large-scale building of760 mm gauge lines across other territories of the Monarchy. The technical solutions pioneered there were used later on all the narrow-gauge railways of Austria-Hungary.[5][6]
