STRANDED on Europe's MOST INCREDIBLE Train Ride!?

today I'm going to be traveling on Europe's most amazing Scenic Railway in a private sleeper compartment from belgrade's new Central Station examining some of its strange features running through Serbia and overnight into Montenegro will be traveling through 254 tunnels and over 435 Bridges including the famous malaria caviaduct all this while traversing some of the best scenery in the world as we connect the capitals of these two countries but of course being in the Balkans things don't always go to plan so I'll be showing you what happens when things go wrong it was definitely an unforgettable trip so join me for an Epic Journey Through the Balkans welcome back to another video today I'm here at Belgrade Central Station in Serbia and I'm going to be traveling on a journey that I've wanted to do for a very long time I'm going to be taking the sleeper train down to Bar in Montenegro I've booked out a sleeper compartment for this journey let's go Belgrade Central Station to put it politely is unfinished and frankly not even close presently it takes the form of a dirty concrete slab in a ditch at the edge of the city it's this construction that has replaced the historic and better located 1880s station the old station has now sadly been demolished to allow for the controversial Belgrade Waterfront development project [Music] plans for the new station are ambitious though with construction only getting this far in 14 years I do have to wonder how likely it is that they will ever come to be [Music] entrance to the station is currently through this bus stop-like structure there's no grand entrance or even lifts to the platform level so if you're traveling with large luggage or especially in a wheelchair then you're going to have big problems here [Applause] back up a couple more stairs and wow they really don't care about accessibility here we have pretty much the only area of the station that isn't completely empty there's a small Cafe here and a few vending machines too this is also where you can find the domestic ticket office with International tickets being sold out of this nearby cupboard but more on the ticket situation later the glitziest of trains operating in Serbia right now is the high-speed service over to novice this soccer train is quite a bit more modern and reliable than what I'll be riding tonight as you'll soon see there's also some Soviet commuter trains built during the 1980s at Riga in the then Latvian SSR my train though is number b433 the lovechen 2 bar departing at 2020. here it comes from the yard the eloff Gin is formed of 10 passenger carriages of which three are seated three are couchets and four are sleepers including the Yugoslav presidential carriage sadly I wasn't quite lucky enough to be booked into that Carriage which will have a closer look at later on instead I will be in the urea coach number 460. the train was full of holiday makers looking to escape to the seaside Resorts around sotomore and bar at the peak of Summer I believe the train was actually sold out so I was lucky to reserve bed number 61 with my accompanying friend traveling in bed 63. today's route starts from Centaur station in the beautiful Serbian capital city of Belgrade formerly the capital of Yugoslavia we'll be heading south for this trip briefly dipping into Bosnia before crossing the border into Montenegro for a stunning Journey Through the Region's mountains finally passing through the capital of Montenegro on the way to the coast today's trip is scheduled at least to take 11 hours and 3 minutes in which we will cover 468 kilometers or about 291 miles of track our journey begins with a send-off from the families of the passengers on board departing on time at 2020. [Applause] as the evening Sky suggests it had been a very warm day here in Belgrade reaching as high as 38 degrees Celsius leaving me to wonder how easily I would be able to sleep tonight [Music] we're passing through koshodnak Depot in Belgrade at the moment which has some very historical vehicles in its confines at almost the complete formation of the tico plavivores the train was built to carry Jose Pros Tito yugoslavia's head of state as a fellow lover of rail travel the luxurious private train was also used by him to host many prestigious foreign guests and often traveled over the route I'm taking today [Music] so now back to our own compartment it's certainly rather old having being built by Fiat in 1973 and living out most of its days in France as you'd expect there is a lockable door to each compartment [Music] as standard the room contains three sleeper beds the upper two are able to fold away if not needed allowing for more space this reveals a piece of artwork with each compartment having a different recreated painting in my case this was the Bay of Naples by Claude Joseph ferne [Music] they were great with a soft pillow a comfortable mattress and of course clean sheets and bedding [Music] beside each bed you can find a small net for storage as well as some sort of folding cup holder [Music] above the pillow there is a personal reading light as well these carriages don't have any air conditioning instead relying on ventilation from the sliding windows whilst this is absolutely perfect for the upcoming scenery as I mentioned before it was very hot today you can also find a privacy blind secured down by these screws at the bottom by the window there's a small wash basin note that this is not to be used as drinking water so be prepared and bring your own [Music] above the wash basin is a small storage cupboard and speaking of storage there's plenty of room to place your luggage above the corridor with coat hooks also being provided near the door finally whilst officially there's no power socket provided you are able to make use of the Shaving socket to charge your device as daylight starts to run out it's time to get some sleep as an incredible morning awaits after making up my bed I was happy to be getting some rest after a long day it took a while to get to sleep thanks to the very hot weather but eventually I dozed off throughout the night I did wake up a couple times but thankfully had no trouble getting back to sleep [Applause] I awake on the approach to priapalia teredna still within Serbia now this was a bit of a surprise to me as despite expecting to be woken up around here I thought this would be a little after 2AM for the Serbian border check instead I arrive in time to see the 0645 service departing for Belgrade making us buy my watch over four hours late oh dear this train has a bit of a reputation for arriving late but to be four hours late already really isn't a good sign after what was admittedly a pretty Speedy border check we're back on the move to cross into Montenegro and crucially where the scenery gets really good following a little bit of inquiring in broken English I found out the train had actually broken down in the middle of the night at valjeva this resulted in them needing to find a replacement locomotive and crew which as I'm sure you can appreciate isn't the easiest thing to do in the middle of the night anyway the journey continues as we head into the Eastern dinaric Alps getting just a little taste of the incredible views to come [Music] it was all going really well until [Music] we come to an unscheduled stop here at the station of prodarevo this is just a small Serbian village with a population of about 1 800 people being the Curious guy that I am or perhaps just a little bit nosy I decided to walk up to the front and see what was going on only to find something that you never want to see the replacement locomotive had also broken down and once again in the middle of nowhere [Music] my first thought of course was how on Earth are they going to get a replacement to us now the nearest Depot is many hours away my second thought was hey I can actually get some pretty cool shots here foreign [Music] became apparent that we weren't going to be moving anytime soon so I decided to go for a little walk firstly the seated carriage and despite slightly envying their air conditioning I really did feel sorry for them having to spend all this time in a seat everyone seemed to generally be in quite good spirits despite the massive delay some even choosing to start their holiday early by sunbathing on the track as the opportunity presented itself quite nicely I decided to get a better look at the presidential Carriage from the title of glavivores this Carriage is beautifully preserved and I find it amazing that it's now in Mainline service unfortunately as the train was fully booked I couldn't get a good look inside hopefully I'll be able to ride in this Carriage one day back at the locomotive it looks like they're trying to get things working again with the pantograph back up [Music] well unfortunately the attempt was not successful and we are very much still stranded and so we keep waiting and waiting as the day gets hotter and hotter eventually a van arrives full of much needed refreshments with the help of some locals and even the passengers these were distributed to everyone on the train everybody got a 1.5 liter bottle of water as well as some plasma biscuits [Music] [Applause] desperate for a drink we barely noticed the rescue locomotive finally arrived acre was given and all passengers got back on the train after 30 more minutes some of the slowest in my life a few file checks were made [Music] foreign with much celebration from my fellow passengers we are finally back on the move after a five hour wait [Music] welcome to the yellow podia in Montenegro we arrive here at the sociable time of 12 30 and sociable it may be but we were due to arrive here at around 3 30 making us some nine hours late maybe I'll think twice when I'm complaining about British train delays now the train is actually so delayed we meet the daytime service operating in the other direction here after a locomotive change and another border check taking about 45 minutes we are free to continue into the country [Music] this spectacular Viaduct is just one of 435 bridges on today's Incredible Journey with the best of them still to come the route also consists of an impressive 254 tunnels both of these figures are hardly surprising when you see the train we're traveling through and when the terrain looks like this it's almost hard to believe that it gets even better colushin one of our intermediate stops today serves as the route's highest point sitting at 1032 meters above sea level and in my opinion is where the best scenery begins they say a picture is worth a thousand words so a video must be worth a million more I'll let the scenery do the talking [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] whilst quite literally riding across the top of mountains be sure to look out for ludovo station foreign all the way up here it really does seem like the station serves nothing at all so if you know why it's here then please let me know in the comments [Music] [Music] our route begins its descent while we're currently at around 1000 meters above sea level the next major station for godza is around 50. you can clearly see it's a long way down and I can only imagine how hard the brakes were working at this point as we wind our way towards podgoriza which is montenegro's capital city we approach one of the route's most unforgettable moments this is the malaria Viaduct with a span of 500 meters this 1970s construction was the highest Railway Bridge in the world for nearly 30 years standing at 200 meters despite losing the record to a Chinese rail bridge in 2001 the construction still stands proud as an iconic part of the route and as a point of national pride in Montenegro finally we are on the approach into podgoriza our next station today the capital city has a small population of about 200 000 people despite this 30 percent of the country's population overall called the capital their home those wanting to arrive in two podcastso in time for breakfast now manage to arrive just in time for dinner at around 15 45. my journey is not quite over though with a few more pleasant sights to come in the meantime though on to the ticket for today's trip on my visit to the international tickets covered in Belgrade I purchased a second class ticket for two passengers as well as a reservation for the double room this came to a total cost of 77 euros 80. for this 291 mile trip that gives a price per mile of about 23p which I think is great value for money considering the ticket is for two people oh and as we're picking up more delay I should probably also mention that a 50 refund was offered for the delay now I'm not quite sure that really covers the inconvenience but as this could only be done at the ticket office and not online I missed out on the chance anyway annoyingly you also can't buy these tickets online either meaning your only real choice is to turn up at the international ticket covered a few days in advance the last bit of scenery that we see today is situated in the Lake skadar National Park and whilst we aren't riding along the top of mountains anymore the change of scenery is much appreciated the section of route between porgoriza and Bard actually gets a very good service with an impressive 11 return Journeys per day as we approach sutamore it's time to run through my overall thoughts on the whole this is an awesome night train route which is clearly very popular with the locals though it's impossible not to mention the ridiculous 10-hour delay incurred due to two separate locomotives breaking down in Serbia now to give credit where it's due both the Serbian and montenegrin Railways have come to an operational agreement to ensure this doesn't happen again after all the train did make national news we depart sutomore now just 15 minutes away from our destination this last stretch of line gives some fantastic views of the coast here in Montenegro finally I see something I never thought I'd see it's bar station and finally the end of the line we arrive here 612 minutes behind schedule just over 10 hours late at 17 35. [Music] and there we have it the epic 21-hour journey comes to an end as always let me know what you thought of the Belgrade bar sleeper and to see a more punctual and modern Night Train click up here now [Applause]

Channel: Superalbs Travels

Views: 358,795

Keywords: Superalbs Travels

Id: r2lbYvRHTDc

Length: 20min 28sec (1228 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022