I am in Slovenia visiting the missus family and friends for a couple of weeks. Not much to do in terms of Japanese N scale but I would not miss a change to try the local trains. The other day the wife left with both computers chargers so I had to go to Ljubljana to get one back. I found the way to do part of the return trip by train. I travelled from Ljubljana to Škofljica which is on a secondary line going southwest to Novo Mesto and Metlika near the border with Croatia. There are only a handful of passenger trains using this line. Mostly KiHas, sorry, I mean DMUs.
This is my train before departure. They told me platform 1 but it was in platform 2. Lucky I asked. The horrendous graffiti is, sadly, very common.
The train was surprisingly full. It was Friday afternoon and students use it to come back home. Their tickets are heavily subsidised.
Now for the most interesting part, look at this tiny containers! Don't they look like the little ones riding on top of Kokis? The white container next to the blue Inno Freight seemed to be owned by the Austrian railways. It would be interesting to know about these little containers from our correspondents in Central Europe.
For a bit of background, the Slovenian railways offer a very marginal and rather useless passenger service. For instance, train links to Italy are just a couple of trains crossing the border into Villa Opicina were there is no Italian train to get anywhere. On the other hand the country is used by quite a lot of freight trains originating from Central Europe and bound for the port of Koper and maybe Trieste, the original destination of the Sudbahn.
For instance, train links to Italy are just a couple of trains crossing the border into Villa Opicina were there is no Italian train to get anywhere.
No train, however there is the Trieste - Villa Opicina tramway which will get you down to Trieste faster than the roundabout train ride down to Trieste Centrale via Bivio Aurisina.
On the other hand the country is used by quite a lot of freight trains originating from Central Europe and bound for the port of Koper and maybe Trieste, the original destination of the Sudbahn.
With the reopening of the Murska Sobota - Hodos line a decade ago Koper has become the main port for Hungary. Traffic has increased accordingly, so much so that SZ is doubling the (spectacular) line from Divaca to Koper (the new track will however be mostly in tunnel).
One line well worth travelling on is the Transalpina from Sezana to Jesenice - especially the section north of Nova Gorica.
I always wanted to ride the Opicina tram! It's been out of service since two of the trams crashed years ago. They were saying this year but I was there last week and it did not work.
There is a second referendum about the Divača-Koper duplication on May this year. So well, we'll see about that.
The Bohinj Railway (transalpina) is indeed a nice railway going through spectacular landscape.
Alas the authorities discovered on the eve of reopening that the whole infrastructure (and not just the two trams which ploughed onto each other...) needed overhauling. So the tramway remains shut. There is however a substitute bus service which follows the line, so at least one can still make those two trains at Opicina... Alternatively, catch an Arriva bus at Sezana, at least the choice of local trains is better from there.
Edit: the Trieste - Ljubjana long-distance service is scheduled to return in June 2018.