Well, I made it to Albania, via Belgrade-Skopje-Bitola-Pogradec-Tirana-Shkoder-Bar-Belgrade. Photos to follow...
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A brief bit of history -
Most of Albania's railway network was built between the 1940s and 1980s under Hoxha's communist government. Before Albania joined the capitalist world in the 1990s, very few people had cars and the railways were well used - now, cars are everywhere and it seems most people have forgotten the trains even exist. They carry less than 10% of the traffic they did in the 1980s - some figures here:
The period between 1975 and 1989 was the golden age. The trains carried 60% of all passenger traffic. Now that figure is less than 1%. In 1989 the trains carried 10.5m passengers but last year that number was 650,000. In 1989 the railways carried 25,000 tonnes of freight a day but in 2009 they were carrying barely 25-30,000 tonnes a month. In 1989 the railways employed more than 8,000 people. That figure now stands at 1,720, and 95% of them are on the minimum wage, which amounts to €123 ($159).
What strikes me about Mr Gjikolli and his colleagues is their dedication, despite everything. Last year the railways had an income of €9m, of which €5m came straight from the government. The rest was from freight and renting out railway premises. I ask how much comes from selling tickets and we do a quick back-of-an-envelope calculation. The answer is €346,153. We are like firemen, lament the assembled managers. All they can do they say, is sprint around fixing everything that breaks. In theory they have 78 locomotives, but only 18 to 20 actually work, and the rest are cannibalised to keep the others going.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/07/albanian_railways_minority_pursuit
There is more historical info here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ak/hekurudha/
The trains and the track are now in a very sorry state. All the rolling stock in use has been donated by or bartered from other countries. Nearly all the windows are cracked, have holes in them or are missing altogether. Not all doors are present either. They are pulled by
Class T669 diesel locomotives which were built in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 80s.
The track is overgrown with weeds pretty much everywhere and the trains have to go very slowly in places (in some instances pretty much walking speed). I noticed a lot of defunct signalling equipment - I'm not sure how the signalling works now but I imagine it doesn't have to be very elaborate as on much of the network there's only one train a day in each direction.
Tickets are very cheap and it was fairly clear that the trains are really only used by people who can't afford the alternatives, which are buses and privately run minibuses. Going anywhere is quicker by road than rail. It's pretty much a skeleton service, with one train operating on each of the longer lines, departing early in the morning and then forming the return journey later in the day.
I've just had a look in an old Thomas Cook European timetable from 2003 and I see that then, on the Pogradec-Tirana line there were two services a day and the journey took more than hour less than it took me. The overall impression is that the railways are just being left to die of starvation.
Although it was fun to do these trips, it was also really sad to see things in such a bad state. It's unclear what the future holds: I've seen mention of an EU feasibility study looking at putting some investment in but haven't been able to find out more (if anyone knows about this I'd be interested to hear).
There is no connection to the rest of the European network except by a freight-only line between Shkoder and Podgorica, so getting in and out of Albania isn't all that straightforward by public transport, but it's perfectly doable - this was my route:
I entered the country from FYRO Macedonia: train from Skopje up to Bitola, then a bus from there to Ohrid (hour and a bit). Ohrid is on Lake Ohrid and is considered one of the top beauty spots in Macedonia, unfortunately practicalities meant I couldn't stay long and have a proper look around. From there you can get buses to Sveti Naum, which is a bit further round the lake and close to the Albanian border. My initial plan was to get a bus there, then taxi to the border, then taxi from the border to Pogradec which is the closest town inside Albania. In the end I found a taxi driver in Ohrid who could take me right the way through (he had visa etc to get through the border) and I went for that because it cut out a lot of faffing about and unknowns. About 25€. He claimed he needed a bit extra to slip to the border police...not sure whether that was really true or not. Anyway, it was a fairly quiet border crossing and I couldn't see any Albanian taxis waiting on the other side so if I'd just shown up there on foot maybe it would have been a hassle to get onward transport.
Once in Albania I got the train from Pogradec down to Tirane. Very scenic but very slow. Beware that Pogradec station is actually about 3k outside of the town.
On the way out, I crossed from Shkodra over to Ulcinj (Montenegro). One of the train conductors on the train from Tirane-Shkodra offered (via a guy I met on the train who spoke a bit of English) to drive me to the border point...went for it because it saved faffing around. Paid him about 15€ I think. He dropped me at the border and there were a couple of (Albanian) taxis waiting about there who could take me across into Montenegro (even though it was fairly late in the evening ). It was about €20 to Ulcinj. I think all these taxi fares could be bargained down a bit with some shopping around but I was on a bit of a tight schedule so didn't really try very hard.
From Ulcinj there are pretty regular buses to Bar, from where I got the train back up into Serbia and Belgrade. That's quite a scenic journey too.
Coming from Britain probably the quickest way into Albania is on the ferry from Bari ini Italy to Durres, but I found that most of the fast ones had stopped operating by late September, so that would be a whole-day or overnight trip.
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First up, a couple of photos of the journey from Skopje in Macedonia up to Bitola from where I continued into Albania by road transport. The trip from Skopje up to Bitola is great by the way - perfect if you like noisy diesels! It keeps up a pretty good pace most of the way and the scenery is good.
Night train from Belgrade to Skopje...
Early morning arrival in the lovely Skopje station
Afternoon train to Bitola. This is what I call a "proper train".
Nearing Bitola
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The first trip I did was from Pogradec to Tirana, the capital of Albania.
This journey covers about 190km and is timetabled to take 7 hours 40min. An average speed of just over 25km/h, or 15mph.
This is the scene that greets you when you roll up at Pogradec station...
Waiting for the train to arrive (it will have left Tirana at 5.30am in the morning)
The train was formed of two coaches - they are ex DB Regio coaches, which I found slightly surreal as I'm used to travelling on these on efficient German local services. You can see a lot of the windows are all smashed up, although apart from this they weren't in too bad a condition.
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Ticket from Pogradec to Tirana
Running at a sedate pace along the shore of Lake Ohrid
This line passes through some very attractive landscapes, particularly between Pogradec and Elbasan where much of the country is quite mountainous
At Perrenjas there is the sad sight of row upon row of abandoned engines and carriages. I'd say there were at least 30 engines sitting here rusting away.
Approaching Elbasan
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It's not entirely clear why so many windows are broken...whether it's just because the carriages can't be stored securely overnight or whether it's some kind of indication of how many Albanians feel about their railways. Maybe there is some kind of association with Hoxha days?
Interior -
It might have been nice to take some photos of the assortment of other passengers travelling but I felt this would be too intrusive. The train was reasonably full for most of the journey. It was staffed by two conductresses, a couple more selling snacks and drinks, and a policeman. They were all quite friendly to me, giving me grapes they'd pulled off vines by the lineside as we'd rumbled past. They assumed I was Italian to start with - I don't think they see many tourists on the trains but most of those that they do are Italian (Italy is linked by ferry). There was quite a bit of joking around in general although largely lost in translation as they didn't speak any English. They seemed happy enough in their work. The policeman was slightly less amiable but didn't give me any hassle. At one point the train ground to a sudden halt and a police van pulled up alongside on the road... there was some shouting and people running through the train but I've no idea what it was all about. After a while we continued on our way.
Arrival into Tirana, late in the evening, was into a dark and largely deserted station. It consists of just two platforms. There weren't that many people on board for the last little bit. I had to find my way out of the station by a kind of side gate.
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The second trip was from Tirana to Shkoder in the north of the country. Again, only one train makes the return trip on this line every day. The journey takes 3.5 hours and is just under 100km so the average speed on this trip is about 30km/h or 18mph.
Tirana station departure board - effectively showing all the trains that run in Albania
Tirana station
Next to the station there was a market going on with people selling fruit and vegetables and chickens and stuff. A little bit before departure the train horn sounded and some of these people started gathering up their stuff. I realised that they had come from places along the railway line and must have come into Tirana on the early morning service, to sell at the market, and were now returning home. Someone I spoke to on the train said that it could get very cold on the morning service on account of the lack of windows and heating.
The Shkoder train was the one on the right.
Looking out from the end of the platform
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This train was made up of old Italian compartment carriages with a bashed-up luggage van at the front which I'm guessing was partly there for the market traders to use.
Approaching Vore where the engine runs round to change ends
Inside the baggage van. The open door was just flapping about. I guess if anyone fell out at least the train wasn't going too fast.
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More dead trains
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Full set on Flickr here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nothingtoseehere/sets/72157625175560410/with/5093229095/
