24th January 2013 - Croatia in the snowThursday 24th January 2013 We decided to have a ride on “table 12” this morning, a stronghold of the class 2044 locos, and fit in a trip on the line between Čakovec and Mursko Središće which the tour we did last October did not cover. The start of line 12 is rather slow in places but it does improve and as we rolled along it started to snow. By the time we reached Čakovec it was snowing quite hard indeed so we changed our minds about going for a walk round and waited for the train back to Varaždin which is where the Mursko Središće train actually starts from. We found a sheltered spot to photograph the train from Kotoriba, hoping that the loco would be cab leading; it was, sort of, but we had forgotten one thing……it was the diagram booked for the new DMU that we had seen at Gredelj works last October. 7022 001 at Čakovec It was still snowing at Varaždin but we braved the elements to take a few shots before heading to the adjacent supermarket for supplies. Shortly before departure time, a pair of 7122 units rolled into the platform, one of them being an interesting yellow and green livery which we had not seen before. We took one quick picture before boarding working on the theory that we would hopefully get a better photo at Mursko Središće, but the saying “never assume, because it makes an ASS of U and ME” came to mind when the object of our attention was detached at Čakovec to form the service to Macinec. 7122 034 at Varaždin The couple of passengers remaining beyond Čakovec alighted before the terminus leaving the pair of us as the sole occupants other than the traincrew to the end but any thoughts of getting a couple of quick photos disappeared with the sight of a large group of school / college pupils waiting on the platform, a good proportion of whom jumped on the train to bag their seats then immediately went back outside and stood smoking next to the doors of the unit. A better picture angle would have been from the other side of the track but the snow was quite deep and it looked as if there were plenty of hazards such as odd lengths of rail lurking underneath so it was decided that discretion would be better than valour on this occasion. 7122 005 at Mursko Središće The DMU got us back to Varaždin at just the right time for lunch; our regular readers might recollect that we had a very rushed lunch at the Hotel Varaždin on the last day of the PTG tour in October and we had decided then that we would return and have a more leisurely meal – no rush this time as there were no trains of any use to us for at least 100 minutes. After an excellent meal we had two choices, to take 2044 005 back to Zagreb via the same route we came out, or a DMU to Koprivnica for an electric hauled train back. We opted for the latter on the theory that we had only had one Croatian “leccie” so far so the odds were good and so it proved with our first class 1141. Going back via this route was quicker, shows how slow the table 12 line is, so we actually had time to catch a rather full local EMU two stops to meet 2044 005 coming the other way though we didn’t choose a very good station to swap sides with its staggered platforms bisected by a level crossing which most of the locals didn’t take a blind bit of notice of, walking under and around the barriers when they were lowered for the next train. 2044 005 at Varaždin Time for one more move so we squeezed on an electrically-hauled train to Ogulin, deciding to hope off at a place called Desinec which proved to be rather bleak, especially as the wind had now got up and it was snowing hard and there was no sign of human life at all other than a few houses a short distance down the road – no doubt it is very pleasant on a summer’s evening in the sunshine with the birds singing. One freight went past shortly before our train was due but there was no means on the platform of telling how late it would be or even if it was running at all; then, about a minute after it should have departed, a lady cowering under an umbrella rushed up. She had a mobile phone “app” which showed the train running 23 minutes late though it eventually appeared over half an hour late. The lady was on her way to work; she would normally drive but, sensibly, had decided to take the train due to the inclement weather. She spoke good English (but kept apologising for it being “bad”!) so we had an interesting conversation whilst we waited for the train to arrive and continued it on the train once it finally turned up.
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