Serbia has the BEST train in the Balkans – here’s why!

Railways in the Balkans have certainly earned themselves quite the reputation they're definitely not known for their high quality their high speed or even sometimes their safety record well today I'll be showing you something very different as I take a ride on board Serbia's own high-speed train with its modern standards of comfort and safety I'll be taking this brand new Express train on a journey between Serbia's two biggest cities and reviewing the quality of this exciting new step for rail travel in the Balkans hello and welcome back to another video today I'm here in Serbia in the city of novusad and I'm going to be taking the brand new high-speed train down to the capital city Belgrade I'm booked in first class for this journey let's go welcome to Novi sad's recently overhauled station just a short walk away from the city's Lively Center there's quite a lot to see here so let's head inside and take a look around all main entrances to the station are surrounded by a makeshift netting construction which you don't often see I assume this is to keep birds from flying in the first thing you'll see in the building is this large main hall which I think is just oozing with character here you will find the ticket office along with a selection of seating and plants some of the ticket office counters have been converted to serve as a post office and bank however there are now a few ticket machines on offer too you also have the option to book in advance using the fairly decent suryavos website this is only available in Serbian but should be easy enough to use more information about the price of tickets near the end of the video Novi South Station is one full of Art and history the biggest example of this has to be the wall art in the main hall the approach to the station features a small garden and there's even a static steam locomotive dating back to the Yugoslav era the rest of the station is accessed by use of stairs though don't worry lifts are available too up here you can find a gallery area but I'd personally call this more of a museum there's so much information on the railways here including a few artifacts and Railway paraphernalia of course there are plenty of pictures too so if you're interested in learning about the railways then be sure to plan extra time here just be onto the gallery room there's an open balcony which during weather like this provides a great view over the station 4 Court [Music] back inside the station we can find a children's play area for families to use while awaiting their book to train and a small comfortable waiting room with TV lastly there's a covid-19 info room for some reason [Music] meals are not provided on the train today but the station does have a restaurant I didn't see any food though just plenty of alcohol let's head out to the platform and await my Train's arrival the first thing you'll notice here is that the station isn't quite finished the High-Speed Rail Project in Serbia is still under construction with only the short section of line I'll be traveling on today presently in operation this part of the route runs from Belgrade Serbia's Capital City here to the City of Novi Sad the country's second largest an intermediate stop is made in the suburb of Novi biograd in the future the line will operate onwards to subotitsa at the north of the country it is then planned for trains to cross the border into Hungary and run to Budapest finally reconnecting the European capitals after the service was temporarily stopped in early 2019. and hourly Services provided on the route I'm waiting for the 1536 arrival which will then form the 1600 departure down to biograd centaur Serbia is a digraphic country meaning that it uses two different alphabets simultaneously whilst this definitely makes it easier for a foreign tourist it was also really interesting to see signage in Cyrillic and Latin anyway here comes my train from Belgrade this is one of just three stuntler kiss units built for survey of Oz the national operator of the country the four car units are exceptionally similar to the ones used by a vest Barn in Austria and Deutsche Bahn in Germany in fact they were part of a follow-on order to this Fleet which enabled a speedy delivery the trains were ordered in April 2021 and entered service less than a year later in March 2022 these Services named Soko with a smart brand to accompany it Soko means Falcon in Serbian a reference to the service's high speed these trains are fully accessible even featuring a sliding step for level boarding and I'm sure I don't even need to explain why that's such a massive change to other trains in the region anyway let's get on board I'm traveling in first class today which is located on the top deck of coach 4. this is an a two plus one seating layout as you'd expect we'll take a look at second class later on in the video I'll be traveling in seat number 15. a rear-facing window seat by the way I was making this journey with a friend and the seat allocation system gave us this seat and this seat not very convenient but thankfully other passengers were okay with swapping so we could sit next to each other as we departure of your side on time add 1600 let's take a look at today's route today's route takes us on a simple southeasterly ride across the northern part of Serbia comprising entirely of brand new high-speed track the journey is scheduled to take 36 minutes to cover the 76 kilometers or about 47 miles leaving Novi Sad we can catch a glimpse of the construction work taking place it's clear that the future for Railways in Serbia is looking bright [Music] we cross over the river Danube one of Europe's longest rivers that traverses 10 countries on its way to the Black Sea [Music] with such a short journey ahead of us it's time to take a look at the interior first class on the Soco consists of just 24 seats here on the top deck they are presented very nicely with a smart leather design there's not too much in the way of padding here but the ergonomics are really good this made for a comfortable Journey the headrest is also Pleasant and has large wings for resting on all seats get a pair of adjustable armrests which are very comfortable thanks to their padding beneath these you can find the controls for the individual reading lights these being found beside the headrest there's also a single European style socket for each passenger located betwixtiege seat personally I found the forced upright posture of the seats really unpleasant thankfully a great amount of recliners available adjusted by pushing this button and sliding forwards foreign it doesn't take long before we're up to our maximum speed of 200 kilometers an hour this part of the journey is spent alongside the river Danube with the other side of it being home to the kovil scope Nature Reserve [Music] legroom here on the soccer is very generous with plenty of room to stretch out note that this is considerably reduced if you choose to recline your seat the seat in front of you hosts a storage net where you can put smaller items above this there's a very well-sized seat back table both first class and second class have an at-seat snacks and drink service albeit at an extra charge to Avail of this simply flag down a member of staff and let them know what you want I went for a cup of hot chocolate and I've got to say it was some of the best I've ever had this costs 180 Serbian Dinars which is pretty good value for money too our journey continues through the Serbian Countryside the scenery might not be anything too special compared to what the country can offer further south but it's still a relaxing Journey however the speed is unlike anything else as with the exception of a very few short sections in neighboring Croatia Railways in the Balkans are often just a fraction of the speed in fact this is the previous train that used to operate on the Novi status to Belgrade route these brutal Soviet trains were built in the 1980s and the less said about their battered Interiors the better anyway let's go and have a look around to the rest of the train plenty of toilets can be found throughout the consist and curiously these are gender-specific we're in great condition as you'd expect for a new train they even featured a urinal in the men's room at least they featured both soap and disinfectant which were both working fine there is of course also water and a hand dryer is provided too coach 2 is where you'll find the wheelchair accessible toilet as well as dedicated wheelchair spaces by the gangway in this Carriage there's a catering area on the other operators of these trains you can use vending machines here but on Soco it is simply a storage and preparation area for the atseat service one more thing these Trends are fitted with free Wi-Fi no sign up is needed so you can just connect straight away these speeds were fairly good too despite being a High Speed Line the route still has a few intermediate stations this is Tara Passover a town with a population of roughly 65 000 people stations like this are not served by high-speed soccer trains instead having a local service running every hour or two as we enter batayunitsa and pass through its flying Junction this is a sign we're entering the city of Belgrade patayinitza is the outer limit of belgrade's commuter rail network named BG Falls still operated with those ancient Soviet trains that formerly ran on the Novi Sad route not long after we see zemun Depot the maintenance base for the modern Stadler Fleet in Serbia though of course no Railway Depot in the Balkans would be complete without a few burnt out wrecks our presence in the outskirts of Belgrade as a parent now as the busy roads and tower blocks come into view [Music] the train starts slowing as we approach our only intermediate stop today this is Novi biograd which translates as new Belgrade it's taken the form of belgrade's business district having started Construction in 1948 as a planned city anyway we're now just a few minutes away from our destination so let's talk about how much this journey cost I bought a one-way first class ticket at a cost of just 380 Serbian Dinars this is incredible value for money the soccer service offers Comfort speed frequency and service so to get all of that for such a low cost is truly fantastic great job [Music] the last part of our journey sees us crossing the river Sava just meters away from its Confluence with the river Danube we are currently heading towards belgrade's news station the controversial biograd Center the station has received criticism for its poor location with almost no transport connections despite being located fairly far from the center locals are understandably also not a fan of the fact the station is still not even close to being finished despite construction having started over 15 years ago a rival here is on time at 16 36. I've got to say I was thoroughly impressed with Serbia's soccer service it's a fast way to get around with comfortable trains so I can't wait to see this offering expanded further in the country and even across borders but as always let me know what you thought of Soko in the comments section and for a look at my 10 hour late Journey aboard Serbia's stunning overnight train then click up here now

Channel: Superalbs Travels

Views: 531,661

Keywords: Superalbs Travels, Serbia, Srbija, Novi Sad, Beograd, Belgrade, soko, soko voz, srbija voz soko, soko voz red voznje, soko train, soko timetable, serbian railway, serbian trains, romanian trains, bulgarian trains, balkans, balkan railways, balkan travel, beovoz, bg:voz, beograd bar, belgrade bar, stadler kiss, westbahn, high-speed train, high-speed rail, hsr, serbia high-speed train, Соко, Воз, Србија, Србија Воз, srbvoz, flixbus, air serbia, interrail, eurail, european railways, train, bahn

Id: AHDCvgcmXQQ

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023