First direct Serbia-Bosnia train after 19 years
BELGRADE: Passengers today climbed aboard the first train from Belgrade to Sarajevo since the 1992-1995 war in
Bosnia, as Serbia and Bosnia resumed direct rail links between their capitals.
Express Train 451 left Belgrade railway station at 8:15 am local time carrying nine passengers in the approximately 500-km journey to Sarajevo and just 17 in total.
Initial excitement was slightly tempered by the poor condition of the three carriages of different colours, made up of a passenger car from Bosnia’s two entities plus a restaurant car from Serbia.
Since the end of the war, which claimed some 100,000 lives and displaced 2.2 million people, Bosnia has consisted of two entities — the Serb Republic (RS) and the Muslim-Croat Federation — linked by a weak central presidency.
The car belonging to the Serb Republic will split in the town of Doboj and go to Banja Luka, while the remaining two will continue to Sarajevo.
Branko Rogosic, a 43-year old Belgrade lawyer, said he travelled frequently on the Bosnia Express in the mid-1980s during his military service in Sarajevo, recalling that the train then was “very comfortable” and had a stewardess. Nevertheless, he added “this is a special
event for us in Serbia
to reestablish some connection between two countries and two people”.
The passenger train is to run daily with a return ticket priced at 31 euros, said Serbian railways spokesman Nenad Stanisavljevic. He said both railway companies felt the economic conditions to resume the Belgrade-Sarajevo link had been met.
“We are not discouraged by the small number of passengers” he added, “This is just the first departure. We expect that there will be enough passengers to meet the economic interests for both railway companies”.
Rail links between Belgrade and Sarajevo were restored after the end of the war in 1995, but passengers had to change trains in order to reach their destination. “I am travelling by this train for the first
time since 1991,” said a
visibly excited Zora Kratina, 75, en route to the central Bosnian town Zenica with her husband Husein.But the excitement of participating in a moment of transport history seemed
to vanish quickly, as the passengers faced the reality of the trip.
“The car belonging to the railway company of Bosnian Serbs is quite dirty, while
the one of Bosnian Muslim Federation has no heating,” a journalist aboard said over telephone.
“The wagon restaurant is warmer though,” he said, adding “the menu was written in German and Serbian.
