ssh tunnel fails to connect

[robert]

Hi there,

from both my laptop with ubuntu 15.04 and my desktop with ubuntu 14.1
i can not set up a ssh tunnel.

i run the following command:
robert at mozart:~$ ssh -N -R 50005:localhost:50005 root at 10.42.0.49

however, when I try to connect to the tunnel from the remote system with:
telnet localhost 50005
i get :
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.


and on the  local system i get:
connect_to localhost port 50005: failed.


I tried a number of different ports.
but all of them show the same behavior.

to my knowledge, there is no firewall running on either of the systems.

how can I fix that ?

thanks.
robert