I spent most of this summer based in Zagreb, taking trains and riding bikes. While I mostly traveled around Slovenia and Croatia, in late August I embarked on a multi day trip across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), taking trains to the Adriatic port of Ploče via Banja Luka and Sarajevo. This post is the first of the two articles where I will share some background on why this trip is so long and complicated, and how I planned it despite these difficulties. In the second article I will write about the trip itself.

Background

A decade ago this wouldn’t have been a notable trip. International travel to Bosnia was never fast, but Banja Luka and Sarajevo were connected to the rest of Europe through Zagreb. I traveled to Sarajevo by train a couple of times in the early 2010s and never gave it much thought. But then something changed – Bosnia and Herzegovina lost its international connection in the 2016/2017 timetable and never got it back. The consensus seems to be that the Croatian rail infrastructure company, HŽ Infrastruktura, started to demand higher fees, which ŽFBH, the railway company in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not want to pay. By 2013 the Sarajevo – Belgrade train had already been cancelled, likely for the same reasons (the train between BiH and Serbia went through Croatia, hence the infrastructure charge by the Croatians). But in 2020 things went from bad to worse for rail travel in BiH – since the pandemic, it’s been almost impossible to take trains within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While the post-war political structure of BiH is beyond the scope of this post, it’s crucial to understand some basics because it’s the political structure of the country that makes rail travel so difficult. In late 1995, the Dayton Agreement ended the Bosnian War, but it also split the country into two “entities” – Federacija BiH (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS). The two entities roughly split the country in half and maintain significant governing competences in relation to the Bosnian state government. That includes roads and railways. The railways in the Federacija BiH are run by Željeznice Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine (ŽFBH) while the railways in the Republika Srpska are run by Željeznice Republike Srpske (ŽRS). Because of this inter-country split, even when the trains ran from BiH towards the rest of Europe, they would change locomotives and crew at the inter-entity lines, further slowing down the already slow journey. Nevertheless, passenger trains still ran between the two entities as recently as 2020. Then COVID hit.

By early 2020 trains still ran between the two largest cities in the country, Sarajevo (located in the FBiH) and Banja Luka (located in the RS). Starting in 2017, these trains used the relatively new Talgo VII trainsets, delivered to ŽFBH in 2010. There was talk about extending this train back to Zagreb, though no progress had been made since the cancellation of that route in late 2016. However, on March 16 2020 the Sarajevo to Banja Luka train was cancelled indefinitely due to the COVID 19 pandemic. It was never restored.

It’s unclear why. Since 2020, every year news reports come out about conversations between the different train companies and the hope that the Sarajevo – Banja Luka – Zagreb route, or at least the Sarajevo to Banja Luka connection will be restored, but so far no progress has been made. While no good reason is given for why the Sarajevo to Banja Luka train can’t be restored, it’s important to consider the ongoing political crisis within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the secessionist threats by the former president of Republika Srpska. While passengers suffer for the fifth year, freight flows freely, not only between the two BiH entities, but also between BiH and Croatia.

While it wasn’t always disconnected like this, transport infrastructure in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina had never been particularly good. During the centuries long Ottoman rule, travel through Bosnia was long and difficult, owing to the extremely rugged terrain dominated by mountains and forests. When Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia in 1878, it constructed the first narrow gauge railroads in the country. These railroads remained the backbone of transportation through World War 2 and they were only replaced with standard gauge rails after a series of intense youth work actions in the post war years, with hundreds of thousands of volunteers building what is still the rail network of Bosnia and Herzegovina today. While rail infrastructure suffered greatly in the devastating Bosnian War in the 1990s, transport links were restored relatively quickly – the first freight trains started running between FBiH and RS in February 1998. The rail link to Zagreb was restored by 2001, and trains started running between Sarajevo and Belgrade in 2009, albeit only for a few years before getting cancelled. If you travel on Bosnian railroads today, you’ll find usable infrastructure that maybe hasn’t been upgraded since the 1980s, but it is otherwise functional. Many of the stations feature plaques commemorating repair efforts by the EUFOR, the European Union military force in BiH. Significant foreign efforts and investments were made to restore Bosnian rail infrastructure, and these efforts were mostly successful in restoring it.

But what good is that infrastructure if trains don’t use it? Between ŽFBH and ŽRS they have a handful of Swedish ASEA electric locomotives (built in Yugoslavia by Končar under license) some old JŽ (Yugoslav Railways) passenger cars, a few donated SJ (Swedish Railways) passenger cars, some Hungarian MAVAG EMVs brought into service ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984 and the crown jewel of ŽFBH, the Talgo VII trainsets that were delivered in 2010. Oh, and ŽFBH has a single Končar 6112 EMV, the standard EMV type used in Croatia. You can almost imagine an alternative future where the early 2010s turned out differently, where instead of rapid deterioration of recently restored connections trains continued running, with modern Talgo trainsets taking passengers to Zagreb and perhaps beyond (Budapest? Vienna?). But it was not to be. It took 7 years for the Talgos to even reach Banja Luka, and that service only lasted until 2020. Nowadays the Talgo trainsets run between Sarajevo and Čapljina, and they make a few dozen runs to Ploče in Croatia in the summer.

The route across BiH

Equipped with these basic facts, I decided to travel across Bosnia and Herzegovina despite these difficulties. I’ve been reading about the breathtaking views of the Sarajevo to Ploče route, following the Neretva river towards the Adriatic sea, and I wanted to take this train while it still ran during the summer (ending September 1). I started to plan by looking at what services existed between Zagreb and Ploče. As you can see in the embedded viaduct.world trip below, the journey took a total of 5 trains across 609 kilometers and 12 hours split across three days.

The route I decided to take follows the exact path of the former direct Zagreb to Ploče service (and the Stuttgart to Ploče service even earlier), but due to current disconnections I was forced to make this same trip across 5 trains and two non-train connections, where I traveled by bike and taxi respectively. The complete route was:

• Day one:
  • Train from Zagreb main station to Volinja (HŽPP) – 9:03am – 10:55am
    • Bike from Volinja to Novi Grad (~23km). Cross into BiH at Novi Grad (formerly known as Bosanski Novi).
  • Train from Novi Grad to Banja Luka (ŽRS) – 3:15pm – 5:20pm
  • Train from Banja Luka to Doboj (ŽRS) 7:30pm – 9:38pm
    • Taxi from Doboj to Maglaj (~25km)
  • Hotel in Maglaj
• Day two:
  • Train from Maglaj to Sarajevo (ŽFBH) 6:07am – 8:47am
  • Hotel in Sarajevo
• Day three:
  • Train from Sarajevo to Ploče 7:15am – 10:36am

Even though the overall time on trains took only 12 hours, due to bad connection times it was impossible to make this trip in less than 3 days. As you’ll see, I spent a lot of time waiting for the next train or waiting overnight for the single daily service that started early in the morning. While I was initially disappointed that I couldn’t make this trip faster, in the end I enjoyed the extra time. By slowing down I got to spend some time in places I was traveling through, and now I’m looking forward to returning there in the future.

For this trip I took my trusty Brompton folding bike. While I only used it for one connection (Volinja to Novi Grad), having the bike with me was very helpful for exploring the towns on the route. I got to ride around Banja Luka and Sarajevo, and I even got to explore Maglaj for a bit early in the morning. When I finally reached Ploče, I rode the Brompton to the beach. I did not experience any problems with the Brompton on any of the trains I took. I’m not sure whether this trip would have been viable with a full size bike. Only the HŽPP train to Volinja had a bike storage area, and I didn’t see anyone else with a bike on any of the trains in BiH. Since the trains between Novi Grad and Sarajevo weren’t full, it should be possible to fit a full sized bike but I don’t know whether the conductors would allow it.

Finding correct information about this trip was somewhat challenging. While I knew basic information from others who have taken trains across Bosnia and Herzegovina recently, like Jon Worth who covered BiH in his Cross Border Rail project last year, I still had to find correct timetables to plan my trip. HŽPP was the easiest – you can use their online search at hzpp.hr and buy tickets there, or you can use their decent-enough app. Both are available in English. Moving on to Željeznice Republike Srpske (ŽRS), I found a functional online search on their website. I was able to plan my trip from Novi Grad to Doboj, and the search showed me available trains with a connection in Banja Luka. However, it’s not possible to buy tickets or get a price estimate online.

ŽFBH was the most difficult to plan for. Even though their website nominally includes a search function, that search did not work at all for any destinations. Reportedly, it also used to be possible to buy tickets for ŽFBH online, with in person pickup at Sarajevo station, but that doesn’t currently work either. Instead, there’s a single page on their website with a full list of currently running trains. The list is somewhat difficult to read, with lots of disclaimers for seasonal, weekend and Monday – Friday services, but once you figure it out it is easy enough to understand even if you don’t speak the language. It does not show intermediate stops, so if you are traveling from Konjic to Sarajevo, for example, you can’t see when that train leaves from Konjic. Since I was traveling across the whole ŽFBH network without getting on or off at intermediate stops, this wasn’t an issue for me.

With the correct timetable in hand, I was able to plan the trip. I would leave Zagreb in the morning on a Friday, reaching Novi Grad in BiH by bike before noon. I would then take the afternoon train to Banja Luka and eat dinner there before continuing on to Doboj. Since the train arrives in Doboj after dark (around 9:45pm), I planned to take a taxi to Maglaj. I found a well reviewed taxi company in Doboj and emailed them ahead of time. I was able to schedule the trip. I booked a slightly overpriced hotel room in Maglaj. Since the only train from Maglaj to Sarajevo leaves at 6 in the morning, I had to spend the night in Maglaj even though there were more options in Doboj. The train from Maglaj to Sarajevo arrives at 8:47am, too late to catch the 7:15am train to Ploče. That gave me a full day in Sarajevo, and I booked an affordable hotel room near Sarajevo station. Finally, the train to Ploče was scheduled to arrive at 10:36am (more on that later), giving me ample time to book a FlixBus for the afternoon and return to Zagreb on the same day.

Planning this trip took a few days before I confirmed everything. I did not have a lot of options since the Ploče train runs only Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and only until September 1st. I booked the trip for the last Sarajevo – Ploče service of the year (August 31st) and prepared for my trip. I’ll cover the experience itself in the next article.