Hunters are outraged that individual hunting trips can now only be undertaken with a Covid certificate. Hunting is considered an economic activity and must be carried out in a safe manner. Does the same regulation apply to volunteer work when repairing the peat railway's machinery? And what about individually “hunting” for litter in the forests?
Full of challenges and at the same time opportunities – that is how the 2021 season passed for the Baloži peat railway. The excursion season was delayed, starting only at the end of July, and ended earlier, in the middle of September. However, that is only the visible side of operations, similar to other tourist attractions.
What makes the Baloži peat railway different? It is not a profit-making enterprise, but an association of volunteer enthusiasts who maintain, restore and regularly operate the railway! Both repair work days, area clean-ups and excursions are organised by volunteers in their spare time. And they don't just operate in Baloži; they travel to other peat railways in search of necessary spare parts, materials and new exhibits.
What is the reason for this selfless volunteer work, sacrificing personal time? Otherwise, such a site would not exist! Narrow-gauge railways are a part of a very essential industrial heritage that, unfortunately, is gradually disappearing, and it is disappearing because it is only economically viable in cases of high transport volumes. Peat railways are maintained with minimal resources, but even then, the work that has to be put into the daily maintenance of the track and machinery is considerable. For this reason, the Baloži railway ended peat transport in 2011, and if it weren't for the commitment of enthusiasts to preserve it, the last 2.5 kilometres of track would already be a part of history.
Since 2013, enthusiasts started restoration work on the railway, searched for and restored locomotives and carriages, and 2018 was the first year that regular excursions began. Before the pandemic, in 2019, the number of visitors exceeded 5,000; excursion trips were running with consistently full carriages, and it was already challenging for the volunteers to accommodate everyone. For the implementation of specific projects, they managed to find funding and attract paid labour.
The pandemic turned everything upside down – first by making it impossible to organise work days and consequently paralysing the annual seasonal preparation work, and then also affecting the possibilities to organise the excursions themselves. Therefore, overall, 2020 turned out to be grim and difficult to predict. The ability for volunteers to meet in their usual way – at work days with warm lunches in the canteen carriage – began to become as much of a luxury as travelling to warmer lands.
The success in not giving up and surviving these challenges was due, first and foremost, to the projects of the state-funded budget programme “NGO Fund”, where support was gained in both 2020 and 2021, to donations from supporters, as well as receiving state support for entrepreneurs under the working capital grant programme at the beginning of 2021.
We are facing a new wave of the pandemic, and it is hard to judge what it will bring. When other tourism businesses are forced to lay off seasonal staff, we only close public operations and switch with our volunteers to the winter maintenance season. However, when restrictions are introduced on the gathering of members of different households, even larger maintenance work days cannot take place. We have already spent two springs navigating this time by becoming innovative – we both held work days in a safe, individual way and invited anyone interested to take part in solo work days, collecting litter in the forest along the railway.
We sympathise with the hunters and are also starting to worry about our own activities – because our work days are also an economic activity, as it is the main goal of the association. We know how to and are able to organise it in a safe way, even without a Covid certificate. But, are we allowed to?