SERBIA: First train leaves Belgrade for Sarajevo 18 years after the service was halted by war

Record ID: 555982

  • Title: SERBIA: First train leaves Belgrade for Sarajevo 18 years after the service was halted by war
  • Date: 14th December 2009
  • Summary: BELGRADE, SERBIA (DECEMBER 13, 2009) (REUTERS) BELGRADE RAILWAY STATION MAN WITH LUGGAGE STANDING ON THE PLATFORM TRAIN IN THE STATION CHIEF OF THE STATION SIGNING PAPERS AND GIVING THEM TO ENGINE DRIVER RAILWAY WORKER CONNECTING COACHES TRAIN COACHES IN THE STATION PASSENGERS IN TRAIN COMPARTMENT PASSENGER INSIDE THE COACH CARING LUGGAGE BOSNIAN FEDERATION RAILWAY COACH WITH TWO PASSENGERS BY THE WINDOWS TRAIN LEAVING THE STATION SIGN READING: "Belgrade" TRAVELLING SHOT: TRAIN ON TRACKS LEAVING BELGRADE TRAVELLING SHOT: TRAIN CROSSING RIVER SAVA CONDUCTOR CHECKING TICKETS CONDUCTOR WRITING TICKETS (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) BRACO DZAJIC, CONDUCTOR, SAYING: "I remember, I am an old conductor. I have worked for 31 years. In the past you couldn't move inside the corridor. We used to have 12 or 13 coaches, 500 to 600 passengers." JOSIP NIKACEVIC, PASSENGER SITTING IN COMPARTMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) JOSIP NIKACEVIC, PASSENGER, SAYING: "If I go back to 20 years ago, when I could not use the service because of the war, It never left the station then. Now I want to use this first train, and be on it and to visit friends and family." TRAIN MOVING EDIM HADZIOMEROVIC, PASSENGER, SITTING IN COMPARTMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) EDIM HADZIOMEROVIC, PASSENGER, SAYING: "I have to travel to Mostar almost twice a week, so for me as a older person the train means a lot. I can walk and go to the toilet. You know how it's travel by bus, at the same time I am sad and joyful." TRAIN PASSING BY TRAIN ON TRACKS/PASSING THE TUNNEL TRAIN ON TRACKS
  • Embargoed: 29th December 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: International Relations,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVA8X33NE9FSAH41ONWBV3IZI8HY
  • Story Text: Creaking and swaying through a landscape of bitter memories, the once beloved Belgrade-Sarajevo train service was restarted on Sunday (December 13) after almost 18 years since the war stopped the service in its tracks.
    The train left Belgrade railway station at 07.15 GMT.
    When the service was stopped people had to use buses or other means of transportation to get to their destination.
    The train has three coaches, one from Serbia, one from the Bosnian Serb republic, and a coach from the Bosnain-Croat federation railway companies.
    "I remember, I am an old conductor. I have worked for 31 years. In the past you couldn't move inside the corridor. We used to have 12 or 13 coaches, 500 to 600 passengers," conductor Braco Dzajic said.
    The journey will take more than eight hours instead of six due to the new borders between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. The journey time is also impacted by the dilapidated track worn out by war, neglect and poverty.
    The express became one of the victims of the wars that erupted in Croatia in 1991 and Bosnia in 1992, fomented by nationalist leaders riding a wave of discontent with a failed economy, crippled by Tito's reckless foreign borrowing.
    Parts of the track were blown up or became front lines as an ethnic Serb rebellion cut Croatia in half, and ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims fought each other in Bosnia.
    The swanky trains of Yugoslavia's golden age -- the "Olympic Express" and the "Bosna Express" -- are gone, to be replaced by older, rickety carriages and slower locomotives.
    "If I go back to 20 years ago, when I could not use the service because of the war, It never left the station then. Now I want to use this first train, and be on it and to visit friends and family," passenger Josip Nikacevic, explained.
    On the train's route, the legacy of the war is inescapable.
    Vinkovci in Croatia, once a main rail junction, was on the front lines and still carries the scars of Serb shelling.
    The Bosnian towns of Doboj, Samac and Modrica became notorious for ethnic cleansing and concentration camps.
    The present public transport link between the two cities -- a bus taking eight hours to wind its way through backwater towns to the sound of thumping Balkan pop -- is seldom full.
    "I have to travel to Mostar almost twice a week, so for me as a older person the train means a lot. I can walk and go to the toilet. You know how it's travel by bus, at the same time I am sad and joyful," Edin Hadziomerovic added.
    There will only be one train a day, compared with the schedule before the war, when there were three.
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