Eskola village

Eskola house (Eskola-talo), Koulutie 3 / Locomotive shed (Veturitalli), Eskola village hall, Pinolankatu 1 / Heritage centre (Perinnekeskus) 63.9079N 24.1731E Kannus

Along with the forest railroad, the area around the Eskola railway station gradually became a lively and multifaceted working and residential area. The timber brought from back forests to the station was loaded directly to VR wagons, or chopped wood was piled temporarily into huge shelters to wait for later loading. In addition to the locomotive shed, the railway station yard comprised an office building, a reparation workshop, a coal shed, a firewood shed, store sheds and staff’s residential buildings. The Kujala café was an important rest stop.

A building for drying cones, a nursery garden, a woodchip factory and a sawmill were also built near the station area. The cone-drying building provided seeds that were planted in the forests of Metsähallitus. The nursery garden, whose water tower still exists, produced pine and spruce seedlings for the needs of forestry areas. The chips of the woodchip factory were used as fuel in cars, especially during the Continuation War. The sawmill prepared timber mainly for the needs of workers’ cabins, stables and other buildings.

Accidents could not be avoided either. A locomotive could hit a car or fall off the forest railroad anywhere, and there were fires as well. For example, the Eskola station yard and village were threatened in August 1955 when firewood shelters caught fire. The fire area was large and threatening, but thanks to the hard work of several fire brigades, they were able to restrict and finally extinguish the fire. More than 7,000 cubic meters of firewood burned, but a more serious catastrophe was avoided.