13th June 2014 - Unlucky for some?Friday 13th June 2014 No prizes for guessing our plans for today though maybe our luck was starting to run out by now as the loco from Maribor was a rather dud 342 005 which stayed on the train at Ljubljana. Being a Friday, IC505 was a lot busier than the last couple of days and there were not only a large number of “normals” on board today but at least 9 other “cranks” and one more who was flying into Trieste to catch IC504. There was the usual wait with bated breath as we arrived at Borovnica and a collective sigh of relief when a dark green shape was spied in the distance but it turned out to be 664 102, one of the three locos of the class of twenty that we have had on a previous occasion. Anyway; look on the bright side, it is a 664 and it was cab leading this time - just for a change. 664 102 at Borovnica13th June 2014. With 342 005 on IC505 06:55 Maribor to Koper. One issue with the problems on this line was that what was and wasn’t running and between where was subject to a certain amount of change as time progressed. Summer was coming and rumours abounded about what would be happening at the end of the month such as the two trains to Rijeka reverting to being a train rather than a bus and IC505/504 becoming a bus though this seemed a bit daft to us given the number of people using it. Today was no exception and we could not see a standard road coach coping with a van load of push bikes and two ladies in rather hefty electric wheelchairs. Only one thing was certain and that would be the station from which dragging would commence at the Koper end; work was just about complete between Pivka and Prestranek and the diesel drags would be 6km shorter within the next couple of weeks. Koper was hot and sunny again so we went for a wander in the nearest shopping centre now that we knew how to get in there, but there was nothing specially interesting about it, no different to just about any other such shrine to the God of retail therapy anywhere else in Europe. Some of our fellow cranks had taken a taxi to a restaurant in the old port area but although we had a little walk round it was still too hot for us to contemplate going too far so it was back to McDonalds for a cup of tea and to use their wi-fi. 342 005 at Koper13th June 2014. After arriving with IC505 06:55 from Maribor. Another 45 miles were chalked up behind 342 005 back to Pivka where 2016 085 was sitting in the siding, thankfully unmanned, and 664 111 backed onto IC504 so now we were starting to get repeat locos just from this trip; but be positive! At least it is a 664! A small consolation was the sight of 643 030 on a short train of open wagons in the siding which was easily photographed from the window as we departed. 643 030 at Pivka13th June 2014. There was no sneaky loco swap at Borovnica today, not that we expected the 342 to be replaced, so it looked as if Friday the 13th would prove to be unlucky when it came to new locos until IC504 arrived at Ljubljana and was met by “the man with the gloves” on the platform. “Clunk clank” and 342 005 was removed to be replaced by 363 015 which would do nicely, so we stayed on to Litija where we had 30 minutes to kill in this rather nice location for photographs but the only things we saw were two graffiti-ridden EMUs. 312 129 at Litija13th June 2014. We were greeted by a rather threatening sky back in Ljubljana so, as we weren’t very hungry, we grabbed a large burek each to take back to the hotel; just as well we did as no sooner had we settled down to eat them the heavens opened and it prodeeded to pour with rain for quite some time.
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