Firefly Grand Tour: A Long Weekend in Arad

In which Sid and Doris spend time in Little Vienna while planning how to deal with Special transmission problems.

Saturday is a frustrating day to break down. Workshops shut at lunchtime and re-open Monday morning. S and D are lucky that Ford Arad has put aside some time to investigate the problem on Monday.

So Sunday is a day of care free tourism. Arad was a significant city in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Romanian history is strornery complicated. This is the Readers’ Digest version: Once this was Roman Dacia and there was a camp here in Arad. In the 10th century Transylvania became Hungarian. In the 13th century the mongols came. From 1551 the Ottomans held the area until it was captured by Serbians for the Habsburg monarchy. In mid 19th century Hungarians and Romanians fought for independence but were put down. After WW1 Transylvania was gifted to Romania by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 adding to Greater Romania that had benefited from the collapse of surrounding empires. In 1941 Romania joined Germany invading Russia. Briefly Romania administered Ukraine as far as Odessa. In 1944 Romania went over to the Russians who rather unsportingly invaded Romania and transported 130,000 Romanian soldiers to Soviet camps. After WW2 Romania was a semi-detached part of the Russian empire until 1989. There are plaques and memorials to the most recent Martyrs of the Resistance in the streets, some in both Romanian and Hungarian.

A hulking monument where soldiers boldly acting Bold protect a woman holding a wheat sheaf still stands in the centre of town. There is no information board. Sid might ask in the Tourist Office when it was made.

Under the A-H empire Arad became an industrial centre making railway wagons and hosting Hungary’s first car factory from 1909 to 1914. Sid is sitting in reception at Ford Arad surrounded by Fiestas proudly stickered Produs in Romania.

The future was certainly going to be very grand. At the beginning of the 20th century Arad had an electric tram system and fine buildings along the wide central boulevard. A visionary drew the future with aeroplanes, a monorail, Zeppelins, cars, motorbikes. It was going to be great. Like New York in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, five or ten years on.  Doris has kindly taken a photo today for comparison.

The Wiki history of Arad (probably curated by the municipality) has this entry: 1937 – Arad was the most important economic centre in Transylvania. The very next entry is 1980s – Astra Arad was Europe’s largest manufacturer of freight cars. That is to miss out the Communist years

The repressive Ceausescu Communist legacy was a low productivity economy and impoverished population. The Viennese architecture of Arad is falling apart though many buildings have been designated as National Monuments. Their funding has not caught up and there are plenty of other competing priorities.

S and D take the tourist map and walk to almost all points on it. The Synagogue is through an arch, behind a gate and a woofy dog. The dog alerts the lady guardian who kindly offers to open up for five minutes. There is seating for at least 300 men and a womens’ gallery. It might have been used on Friday.  Or it might have been used decades ago.

We visit the Catholic cathedral of St Antony of Padua where there is standing room only, the congregation led in its singing by a single strong male voice. Very effective. It is quite colourful with painting and glass.

Our marathon continues with a visit to the Central Market. For Les Burt we include pictures from the fish stall. Decorative, not nutritious. The fish, not Les.

There are many very small stalls where people are sitting waiting to sell a few carrots from their gardens. Quite sociable but not the living from a California Farmers’ market. GDP per head is $29,000 or about half the US equivalent. Looking at the country so far Sid concludes that people in Bucharest must be rather rich.

As ever a highlight is a visit to the railway station. This was designed by Ferenc Pfaff for Hungarian railways. We could also visit his 20 other stations across the A-H empire. Journeys have been based on less.

On the forecourt is a 130 series 2-6-2 tank engine, repurposed as a pigeon house (cf Bold Soldiers Statue). It too was probably A-H built. Inside Doris finds a new item to be bought from vending machines: books for your journey.

The newest stop on our comprehensive tour is the Eastern Orthodox Cathedral. Concrete built between 1991 and 2008 the painting is now finished. The synagogue was dustily grey, St Anthony had some colour. This is blingtastically decorated. The A-H links remain; the bells were cast in Austria.

All the while Sid is messaging, calling and emailing with Jonathon Styles and Alex Simpson looking for a gearbox for Jonathon to bring out from Luton to Timisoara and on to Ford in Arad. Jonathon discovers a likely candidate but on Monday Alex finds Earley has one on the shelf which had actually been fitted to this car. Doris and Jonathon make all the travel arrangements. Sid has a word with Alex on how to support the engine while we get the box down.

Early Monday we go out to Ford and late morning the Alvis gets pushed onto a ramp. The first thing we discover is how narrow its track is, it just fits on the ramps. Our main contact elects himself as chief mechanic for the project, occasionally assisted by two others. They all speak English.

Because the car is regularly rebuilt everything comes apart though the sump guard is still encrusted with oily bauxite from the rallycross stage. There is still some talk of the issue possibly being in the clutch. When we get the box and bell housing on the floor the input shaft will not turn. Taking the top off reveals  the extensive damage. A similar ‘box failed on this car’s Peking to Paris trip. Probably time to think about a stronger box. The Sid and Doris car will have an Alvis box which we will test appropriately in the user acceptance phase.

So, we need a box. We have a box, an adventurous Jonathon prepared to bring one, flights and the opportunity to borrow a ramp. In our next exciting instalment we hope to meet Jonathon and try to fit the new box.