Railway Network
The Croatian railway system consists of 2,974 km of rails (of which 248 km is double track). 1,228 km is electrified - 41.3%. (End of 2004).
There are several major railway routes in the country:
- (coming from Ljubljana, Slovenia) from Dobova via Zagreb, Slavonski Brod, Vinkovci to Tovarnik (and on to Belgrade, Serbia)
- there is a connection in Strizivojna–Vrpolje towards Osijek
- from Zagreb to Osijek via Koprivnica
- from Zagreb to Rijeka
- from Zagreb to Split
- from Zagreb to Sisak - the shortest but very important
- from Zagreb to Varaždin
There are also other routes to Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
The railways are in urgent need of modernization. Following the break-up of Former Yugoslavia, there has been minimal investment in railway infrastructure right across the country. Many important routes are still not electrified, are single track, have high grades and meandering sections - ultimately leading to slow speeds.
The network has been improved over the last ten years, with the effect of an increased maximum speed on the Zagreb-Novska-Vinkovci line. There are sections where the speed limit has been raised from 80 km/h to 120 km/h and even 160 km/h. Railway modernisation is set to be extended further with a national 'railway investment plan' (with funding totalling over 18 billion HRK through to 2012.
Read more about this topic: Croatian Railways
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