The Čierny Hron Forest Railway

At its height the Čierny Hron forest railway ran 131.98 kilometres of 760 mm track up nearly every side valley of the Black Hron, in the Veporské vrchy south of Brezno, and up to seven steam locomotives a day brought timber down to the sawmills at Čierny Balog and the transfer sidings at Hronec. The first section, 10.4 kilometres from Hronec to Čierny Balog, was built from 1908 and inspected on 8 January 1909. Lorries won in the end, as they did everywhere: by order of the Slovak government the last 36 kilometres closed on 31 December 1982, the last forest railway still working in Slovakia, and everything on it was marked for scrap.

It survived because people refused to let it go. Local conservationists had it entered on the state list of cultural monuments, volunteer work camps began rebuilding it in the summer of 1983, and the first restored section, from Čierny Balog into the Vydrovo valley, reopened on 1 May 1992. A non-profit company has owned and run it since 2003, and the operator is plain about what the ticket pays for: the fare is a contribution to restoring a cultural monument, not a commercial service.

What runs today is three short out-and-back routes from the station at Čierny Balog — steam to Šánske and to Dobroč, a diesel into the Vydrovo valley — and on the Dobroč run the train passes between the grandstand and the pitch of the village football ground.

Every train starts and finishes at Čierny Balog, where the station building doubles as the railway's museum and ticket office, and the museum and depot can be looked round before each steam departure. The village is not one place but thirteen hamlets strung along the Black Hron and its side valleys, and the three routes run out from the middle of it in three directions. They can be combined on one ticket and linked up according to the day's timetable.

Red: up the Hron valley to Šánske

Five kilometres north-west, past Krám — the oldest of the hamlets, founded around 1563 as the woodcutters' base — and on up the valley to the passing loop at Šánske, where the train waits about a quarter of an hour before returning. In summer this is a steam route. The engines are a Smoschewer of 1918, a ČKD of 1948 and a Reşiţa built in Romania as late as 1985, hauling open excursion coaches dating from 1898 to 1938. The track beyond Šánske, on through Svätý Ján and Hronec to the main line at Chvatimech, is out of regular use because it is worn out; only works trains and specials go down it, and rail bikes, which can be hired to ride it.

Blue: through the football ground to Dobroč

Four kilometres the other way, out through the hamlets to Dobroč, with a pause of about ten minutes at the end. This was the last section to reopen, on 30 April 2012, and it is the one people come for: at the ground of TJ Tatran Čierny Balog the track runs along the touchline, between the grandstand and the pitch, so the train goes straight through the stadium. The operator calls it unique in the world.

Green: into the Vydrovo valley

The third route is a diesel, four kilometres up the Vydrovo valley to the forestry open-air museum, with two stops inside it and a five-minute turn at the top. It is worked by the Hungarian-built Rába TU 45.001 of 1961 with open coaches of 1959 and a driving trailer of 1954, or by the railcar M 21.004, built in 1939. This is the section that reopened first, in 1992, and it is the one that runs the longest season.

The Swiss trams in the yard

The cream-and-red cars parked at the railway's sidings are the next chapter, if it happens. In 2020 the railway won the tender for seventeen vehicles of the Waldenburgerbahn near Basel, which was being regauged — seven BDe 4/4 motor cars and ten Bt driving trailers, built between 1985 and 1993 for 750 mm track and 1,500 V DC. They cost CHF 80,000, came down the Rhine, the Main and the Danube by barge in the spring of 2021, and were unloaded at Hronec on 14 May. The plan is to electrify the line and run them as a year-round regional service. Until then they run on demonstration days, powered by a diesel generator.

Every train leaves from and returns to Čierny Balog. There are two timetables, one for the steam trains and one for the diesels, and both are seasonal. The times below are the railway's own 2026 timetable, read on chz.sk in October 2026; the next season's is published on the same page in the spring.

Steam — to Šánske and to Dobroč

Every Saturday from 4 April to 20 June, plus 1 and 8 May; daily from 27 June to 29 August; then Saturdays 5 and 12 September and Sunday 13 September. The museum and depot can be visited for half an hour before each departure.

Diesel — into the Vydrovo valley

Daily from 28 February to 15 September, provided at least six full tickets are sold for the departure.

Out of season

After mid-September the regular season is over and the railway runs announced days instead. In autumn 2026 there were two, on 17 and 31 October, worked by the historic diesel on all three routes:

No booking was needed for those: arrive about a quarter of an hour early and buy a ticket in the station museum. Groups of twenty or more can hire a train on any date. Check the timetable on chz.sk (opens in a new tab) and the railway's news page before travelling, because special days are announced there and nowhere else.

Fares are by the number of routes ridden, not by distance, and every route is a return trip. One route is €15.00; two cost €26.00, and all three €38.00. Pensioners, children from three to fifteen, students with an ISIC card up to 26 and disabled travellers pay less, under-threes ride free, and a family ticket for two or more routes takes 10 % off. A steam train costs €2.00 a head on top, whatever the age.

Tickets cannot be bought online: they are sold at the station, and cards are taken for payments of €15 or more. One route takes about 45 minutes by diesel and 50 by steam, so two routes fill a morning and all three most of a day. Prices from the 2026 price list on chz.sk, October 2026.

No pass covers this railway. Interrail's railway-companies table, updated on 21 October 2026, lists the Čiernohronská železnica by name among the trains not included in the pass in Slovakia, alongside the country's other preserved forest and narrow-gauge lines — the Oravská, Považská and Beskydská lesná železnica and the Nitrianská poľná železnica. Every ride here is paid at the station, at the railway's own fares.

Whether it is worth buying

Not for this. The nearest stations on the national network are Brezno and Chvatimech, on the Banská Bystrica–Červená Skala line, and an Interrail or Eurail pass is valid on the ordinary ZSSK trains that serve them. That makes a pass useful only if the trip to Čierny Balog is one day of a longer journey around Slovakia; for the forest railway itself, buy the €15.00 route ticket at the station.

The railway is a half-day, and the country around it fills the rest of a visit: the ironworks village at the bottom of the old line, the mountain the forest branches climbed towards, a show cave under the Low Tatras and the market town a few kilometres to the north.

Čierny Balog lies a few kilometres south of Brezno, the district town, and the two hotels below are on the Brezno side: one on the edge of the town itself, and one up under the southern slopes of the Low Tatras for anyone combining the railway with walking or the cave at Bystrá.

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