Long train running

My heavy infection destroyed my plans to visit Novi Sad and I thought it is a good idea to go to the adriatic mountains because there are better weather conditions.
Buying the train ticket was again a problem. At the Belgrade main station they told me that there is a kind of seat lottery and that they cannot sell me a ticket in advance. I would need to come to the ticket counter an hour before the train leaves and then it might be possible so buy one - it was obvious that I should bribe them. I therefore went to a private travel agency and could by a ticket without problems.

Doobie Brothers- Long train running would fit for the long train run but maybe also Salma Agha - Come Closer.

Belgrade's main station.

A local train - note that is has only one passenger car but 2 locomotives and both where staffed.

The railway infrastructure at the main station is bad. The rails are so abandoned that the trains can only enter and leave the station with walking pace and passengers told me that derailments happen frequently. There are also people crossing the rails outside the station as if there is a pathway across them. So I sat in an international train was looking out of the window and noticed that the train was as fast as a mother with a baby stroller that she pushed along the rails - I was flabbergasted. However, our locomotive broke down 200 meters from the main station and we had to wait 2 hours for a replacement. It was interesting to see how a dozen of railway workers and also passengers tried to repair it. Most of the time there were only discussions and finally someone came up with a huge hammer and some wrenches - without success.

People around the broken locomotive.

I thought that the train line from Mostar to Sarajevo cannot be topped but the train line from Belgrade to Bar much longer and I would say it is even more spectacular. The rivers are so deep, the mountain walls high and the valleys very narrow. If you ever considered to take the Glacier Express consider to take instead a train from Bar towards Belgrade. I recommend this direction because the section from Bar to the Serbian border is the most spectacular one. It contains for example the famous Mala Rijeka Viaduct. Because of our broken locomotive we arrived Podgorica in the dark so that I missed to see parts of this section.

View at Užice with its typical
Yugoslavian tower blocks.

Most probably the Potpeć Reservoir

At the border to Montenegro.

My original plan was to go to Žabljak to rest in a place with less heat and to see the Tara canyon (the deepest in Europe) but because of the delay of the train I missed the bus from Mojkovac. Angela who I met in the train, convinced me to drive to Podgorica, sleep there a night and then go to Montenegro's old capital Cetinje. Angela, this way many thanks for a superb 12 hour train ride, for interesting talks and discussions (sometimes together with the whole railroad car) about almost everything. Also thanks that you pulled me back inside the train when I was trying to shoot a photo out of the window.
The railroad line has more than 250 tunnels! The landscape is so extremely amazing and I spent a lot of time to shoot photos but the next tunnel came in most cases faster than I could shoot. It took a while until I realized that it is sometimes better to relax and just enjoy. (There are enough photos in the Internet that one can use to remember.)

Angela - she didn't want be photographed so I had to trick her to get this snapshot ;-)