A Train Back on Tracks After Nine Years

A Train With a Timetable

The last train for Zagreb departed from the Sarajevo Railway Station on May 3, 1992. After it left, a steel curtain of bullets and shells enveloped Sarajevo and its citizens. After fours years of war, the siege was lifted, but it was still impossible to travel to Zagreb and further on to the West by train, although B&H is the only European country with three "state" railway companies.

AIM Sarajevo, June 11, 2001

On Sunday, June 10, Muharem Omic, seventy-two year old retired railway worker took a train from Sarajevo to Zagreb. After nine years this was the first train to leave Sarajevo for Zagreb. At the time of tourist space flights, the news that it is possible to travel from one country to another by train is not much of a news, but for B&H the re-establishment of the railway line Sarajevo-Zagreb represents more than just another way of travelling.

The legacy of war were also three national railway companies in B&H: "The B&H Railways" from Sarajevo, "The Herzeg-Bosnia Railways" from Mostar and "The Railways of the Republic of Srpska" located in Banjaluka. In the past five years, each of these three railway companies "sovereignly" ruled over their part of the tracks, offering citizens 50-kilometre ride (at best) and thus turning B&H into a "blind gut" of the railway traffic. After much arguing, B&H got the first "normal" international railway line Sarajevo-Ploce, which marked the normalisation of relations both with the neighbouring Croatia, as well as among partners within the B&H Federation (one of two B&H entities). Nevertheless, B&H remained an "island" in the international rail network, because passenger trains could not go over the entity borders. Until recently ruling national elites have turned such a trite thing as the rail traffic and train travelling into first-rate political issue of "vital national interest".

It thus happened that a "technical reason" was always there to prevent trains from going beyond their national territories, while citizens paid for that by being denied a possibility to travel more cheaply. Since quite tangible financial interests are usually behind such big-time politics, in this case those were enormous extra profits numerous bus and truck operators made by transporting passengers, and even more goods. The "truck-bus" lobby was unofficially proclaimed as the main cause of political obstruction that resulted in constant postponing of the re-establishment of passenger rail traffic towards Zagreb and further on to the West.

Finally, a political compromise was reached under the pressure of international community. Incidentally, several dozen million of German Marks in loans for the modernisation of B&H railways over the coming several years would probably not have been granted if passenger trains had not been running along the existing railway tracks. So as not to make anyone feel "defeated" or "victorious" because of the fact that trains were again travelling, the usual promotional ride that is organised on such occasions with politicians and high officials was skipped this time. The official explanation was the "hard material position of the railway companies". Some ten passengers, which started on the first post-war train ride from Sarajevo to Zagreb, were mere mortals, for whom the trains are incidentally intended.

A guest of honour was Muharem Omic, who in distant 1947 dispatched the first train on the just finished railway line Samac-Sarajevo. Several years ago, making a parallel between the last and "that" war in B&H, cynics concluded that "it took the communists five years to build a new track, while for those today five years are not enough to agree on letting the trains ride on the existing tracks". In view of his working life spent on railways, Muharem is certainly competent to make comparisons, but refrained from such assessments being too happy that the trains he loves so much were riding again.

True, everyone has a reason to feel both victorious and defeated at the same time. The engine and engine-drivers of "The B&H Railways" (which start from Sarajevo) are replaced in Doboj (on the territory of the Republic of Srpska) by "locals", (and from the Croatian border the Croatian crew takes over the train). This is some progress, for until now the trains were not running at all. Now, every morning at 8,00 a.m. it is possible to depart from Sarajevo towards Zagreb, i.e. at 9,00 a.m. from Zagreb to Sarajevo. A single ticket for nine-hour train ride on this line costs DM 45, i.e. DM 71 if the passenger decides to buy second class return ticket. The trip lasts two hours longer than before the war, but the railway people say that after the required reconstruction of the track the trains will again travel faster.

Tanja IVANOVA

(AIM - Sarajevo)