Narrow gauge railways as attractions and gates to nature

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Miskolc (LÁEV) and Košice (DŽK) historic narrow gauge railways (HNGR) have common history and belong to common cultural heritage in the Central Europe. Over time both HNGRs have been transformed into distinctive specific thematic tourist destinations and „gates to nature” and now there are up to 250 000 local and foreign tourists yearly. Because of poor attention and care in the past, both railways suffer from similar serious problems and face similar challenges how to restore and preserve this specific cultural heritage. The overall objective of the project is to restore and preserve this cultural heritage and through common solutions to enhance their attractiveness to visitors and ensure their long-term and sustainable use. Direct object ives are to improve present state of HNGR´s infrastructure, to improve quality of services and to start a long-term cooperation. Improving bad conditions of infrastructure will be achieved via investments in station buildings, rolling stocks, rail in frastructure and equipment in the stations. The jointly elaborated common Master plan with a marketing strategy will suggest solutions how to preserve, restore, maintain, and promote both HNGRs and how to develop this new integrated tourist area with own products and brand including new green tourist possibilities. Since both railways have much in common and it is necessary to address common challenges, solutions identified in the context of cross-border cooperation have good prospects of being more efficient and also transferable to other similar railways. Enhanced cooperation and joint planning in preparing the Master plan will not only bring exchange of information in the organization, financing and decision-making processes, but also c ontribute to knowledge of other regions with similar natural and cultural assets. Improving the attractiveness of both HNGRs will direct influence and ensure more visitors - people from the target groups.

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