Pristina to Skopje by Train

This year has been one of finally visiting some of the former states of Yugoslavia.  Having been to Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia in the year, this time it was the turn of Kosovo and Macedonia (also known as FYROM, the Former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, to avoid confusion with the northern Greek state of the same name).  As with a lot of this part of the world, privately run coaches offer the principal means of inter-city transportation, with state run railway enterprises offering infrequent and slow services, not so much in competition but in a nod to the past, and presumably in the hope that one day the investment will be there to offer a much better service.  Two such operations are Kosovo Railways ('Railkos') and Macedonian Railways ('MZ').

One of the purposes of this blog is to update the experience on the fantastic Seat61.com website. Wikipedia provides a surprisingly detailed overview, though I suspect a little out of date, of the operations of Kosovo Railways.

Railkos is not a busy operation, providing a total of ten passenger trains per day, consisting of two round trips between Pristina and Peje, one round trip between Pristina and Skopje, and two round trips between Pristina-Kosove and Hani i Elezit.  Kosove station is located in the west of the city and appears to be the home of Kosovo Railways, with multiple sidings located along its north side and further to the west.

This is my experience with Railkos and MZ......

I did a recce to Pristina station the night before travel, and was lucky enough to see the afternoon's service to Peje depart, with former Yugoslav Class 661 heading five coaches and a generator/cargo van.

Passenger milling around the unlit Pristina station, usually smoking, until a loud whistle from the loco determined it was time to go!

This is Pristina station frontage; to the left behind the black tarpaulin is a night club of some sort, playing dance music well past 7am.

The right hand window is the information and ticket window of Railkos at Pristina.  Upon inquiring about the 07:10 train to Skopje the ticket office chap told me it went at 07:30.  He seemed slightly bemused I wished to buy a ticket, which was 2.50 Euros.  Exactly the same ticket from exactly the same ticket issuing machines could be bought on the train.

The Trainkos ticket was actually issued to the border town of Hani i Elezit, though I wasn't told that in English or Kosovan.

The wall of the station has photos of happy days on Kosovo Railways!

The station ticket hall leads on to a patio and access to the single island platform.  This area has a lot of broken glass and empty beer bottles from 'premium' Western brands such as Heineken, which suggests the neighbouring night club might spill out on to the station overnight!

This is Pristina's platform,  The left hand side appears to be recently laid track, both the ballast was fresh and some other photos on the internet do not show it in place.

The Kosovan railway is largely unfenced.  This short cut across wasteland on to the permanent way appeared to be the preferred access route to/from the city centre.  The first of the day's trains to Peje was due to leave at 07:50: the majority oif passengers were for that train.

At about 07:30 the chap who sold me a ticket wandered off down the track and manually adjusted the points to allow the Skpoje train to arrive on the loop - the newly laid track.

Travel tales on the internet suggested the train to Skopje should be a Kosovan carriage and a Macedonian carriage hauled by an elderly ex-Norwegian locomotive, at least as far as the border, where a Macedonian locomotive would complete the journey.  Quite disappointing then when a single vehicle diesel railcar turns up, being of Swedish origin,

I have no idea what 'Hope Box Train' means.  Here are customers milling about: we would not leave until about 07:45 as we needed to allow the Peje train to arrive along the single track in to the adjacent platform and it was running a little late. The morning Peje service was the return working of the departure I'd seen the previous night.

The interior of the train was battered.  It also had no heating, whilst a good number of passengers seemed to know the four (!!) customer facing staff.  During the journey timetable cards were handed out suggesting a new timetable in place, which may mean a permanent retiming for the 07:10 to 07:30.  As the Peje arrival is due at 07:32 in reality this probably means the Skopje departure goes a few minutes after this. Unfortunately I didn't realise he was handing out timetables until too late.

The Hope Box Train at Hani i Elezit.  Upon arrival we were motioned off this unit to join the single Macedonian Railways carriage immediately ahead.

Trainkos rail car up behind the Macedonian carriage

The Macedonian carriage carries quite an attractive livery behind the bodyside graffiti,  The graffiti was far from the biggest problem though - there is no loco attached to the carriage!  There was some discussion between the passengers and the inbound train crew/staff at Hani i Elezit.  As a result most passengers wandered off, later I realised they'd been told of a substantial delay (or retiming?) and reappeared with provisions 20 minutes later.  Most passengers took up the offer of the station staff to wait in their mess room!

A quick snapshot of what looks likes a new platform and station building, i suspect built with EU funds.  Neither were in use!  After about an hour we were motioned outside, just as Kosovan border police turned up.  As they checked passports, wrote names on a clipboard, and stamped us out the country, we boarded the Macedonian carriage. 

 

After about 70 minutes in Hani i Elezit and whilst waiting on the [freezing cold] Macedonian carriage, a train arrived from the direction of Macedonia, hauling what appears to be a piece of outsize cargo equipment from Zagrebtrans.

The locomotive was detached and ran around to the front of the carriage!

The carriage appears to be ex-Deutsche Bahn

And once again was in very poor condition.  About five minutes in to the journey we stopped at a border control point, and Macedonian police took passports from all the passengers.  It was a little concerning when we departed not having got my passport back.

I glanced down the corridor and saw the pile of passports in the hand of the train guard. As he made his way down the train selling tickets he also returned the passports.  The journey from Hani i Elezit to Skopje was 2 Euros.

 

The train made three station calls within Macedonia which are not shown on the Railkos timetable.  These were at Volkovo, Dorce Petrov, and Skopje-Sever.  At each the station master dutifully dispatched the train.

On arrival at Skopje, almost two hours late!

Skopje station has an impressive six platforms which appear quite modern (as well as a couple others in a  state of decay).

Modern lifts and design suggest this could probably be anywhere in Germany.

Unfortunately the station was deserted once the few passengers from Kosovo had left.

This is the ticket hall.

Another EU funded project.  I'm not sure what they envisaged gaining out of this unless it's part of the Trans European Network (TEN).

Just in case it is any use, I photographed this winter's arrival and departure sheets as well as another notice pinned adjacent to the timetables.

 What fun!  Thoroughly enjoyed this short but unpredictable journey!