The End of the Zliv Narrow Gauge Railway

In the second half of 19th century a fireclay factory was founded at Zliv, not far from České Budějovice. The reason for the foundation of the factory was fireclay deposits in the neighbourhood of Zliv. The problem for extended production was the transport of fireclay from quarries to the factory. Therefore in 1884 a project of construction of a narrow gauge railway was introduced. The construction of the railway was finished in the second half of 1885. The steam operation was stopped in 1951 and steam locomotives were replaced by diesel ones. In the last period there were operated two types of locomotives. In the line operation between the quarry at Blany and the factory Calofrig (later Schiedel) was used locomotive DEUTZ with Škoda engine. Smaller locomotives BNE 25 were used for shunting. On 13 September 2005, after 120 years of operation, the liquidation of the railway was started.