History
- 1864 - The first sod is turned for making the Ruse – Varna railway line. The Turkish government had commissioned for it an English company managed by William Gladstone, a politician, and the Barkley brothers, civil engineers
- 1866 - Official opening of the 223 km long Ruse – Varna railway line
- 1870 - Baron Maurice de Hirsch starts the construction of the Constantinople – Belovo railway line
- 1873 - Official opening of the Constantinople – Belovo railway line. The National Liberation movement and railway revolutionaries: Todor Kableskov – station master at Belovo railway station, Zahari Stojanov – shunter at Tarnovo Sejmen (today’s Simeonovgrad) railway station, Ilarion Dragostinov – a telegraph operator at Ruse railway station, Georgi Ikonomov – a shunter at the railway stations in Ruse, Tarnovo Sejmen and Edirne, etc.
- 1885 - The National Assembly passes the Railway Act, according to which railways in Bulgaria are state property and are operated by the state
- 1888 - Stefan Stambolov’s government expropriates the Vakarel – Belovo railway line (built and previously operated by Vitalis) and starts operating it. On 1 August, the whole of the Tsaribrod (Dimitrovgrad, Serbia) – Sofia – Belovo railway line is opened for international traffic.The state buys off the Ruse – Varna railway line and startes operating it on 10 August. The Bulgarian State Railways are established, based on the Tsaribrod – Sofia – Belovo and Ruse – Varna railway lines.
- 1912 - An independent Ministry of Railways, Post Offices and Telegraphs is established
- 1922 - A State Railway School is established
- 1950 - The Day of the Railwayman is officially declared – the first Sunday of August
- 1952 - The sub-Balkan railway line is opened
- 1963 - Diesel traction is introduced for train traffic with the diesel-hydraulic B′B′ locomotives (class 04), built by SGP; the first electrified line, Sofia – Plovdiv, enters into operation with the new then class 41, built by Škoda.
- 1964 - The first doubled track, Sindel – Varna, is completed
- 1978 - Operations start on the Varna - Illichivsk ferry line with four train ferries capable of carrying each 104 four-axle 1520 mm wagons. Break of gauge facility was constructed in Beloslav
- 2002 - On 1 January 2002, the new Railway Transport Act enters into force, passed by the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria, according to which the National Company Bulgarian State Railways is split into two separate enterprises – a railway carrier (Bulgarian State Railways EAD) and an infrastructure enterprise (Railway Infrastructure National Company)
- 2010 - The European Commission formally warned Bulgaria in May 2010 for failure to implement the First Railway rules on track access charges.
- October 2010 - further restructuring announced, with BDŽ EAD becoming a holding company, and all rolling stock allocated to passenger & freight subsidiaries.
Read more about this topic: Bulgarian State Railways
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