The former railway of the First World War: Vecumnieki - Mercendarbe
Infrastruktūra

In 1916, when the front line of the German army had strengthened and stabilized along the left bank of the Daugava, on March 15, a decision was made to build a 25 km railway line from Vecumnieki (Bhf. Neugut Kurland) to Baldone (station: Mercendarbe - Merzendorf) for the supply needs of the front. in length with a track width of 1435 mm. On March 30, around 5,000 workers started work and by May 1, the line was built to Skarbe station, and on May 6 – to Mercendarbe. The order of stations from south to north was as follows: Neugut Kurland, Nougut Nord, Birsemnek, Gedeng, Skarbe, Merzendorf. In the largest of the stations - Skarbe, cargo was transshipped, from where it was further transported to the front by horse transport. As early as 1921 transported logs and firewood along the railway line until it was demolished in 1925. The location of the railway line is very different in different sections - in some places roads of different importance pass along it, in some places as a clearly visible embankment crosses forest massifs. There are places that are difficult to pass during the growing season.

At the former Gediņu station ("Bahnhoff Gedeng"), a narrow-gauge railway branched off in the northeast direction, the tracks of which continued towards the Daugava. It crossed Silupi (Kausupi) near Sille houses (former station "Bhf. Sille), but near Podnieki houses it branched. The first branch went to the right to Berkava, and the second to the left to Vilku mountains and then returned to the broad gauge (1435 mm) at the Skarbe railway station.

1917 in September, the Germans built another narrow-gauge railway line (track width - 600 mm) from Mercendarbe and Skarbe to the Daugava, where they built a pontoon bridge and on October 1 opened traffic all the way to Ikškile. On the 4th of December, the said bridge was taken away with the sledgehammers.