Railways of Albania

[teuchter]

I spent a few days in Albania last month, and made a couple of journeys on the country's neglected and threadbare railway system. It's not exactly your average European railway so I thought I'd put a few photos up here.

Most of Albania's railway network was built between the 1940s and 1980s under Hoxha's communist government. Before Albania joined the capitalist world in the 1990s, very few people had cars and the railways were well used - now, cars are everywhere and it seems most people have forgotten the trains even exist. They carry less than 10% of the traffic they did in the 1980s - some figures here:

The period between 1975 and 1989 was the golden age. The trains carried 60% of all passenger traffic. Now that figure is less than 1%. In 1989 the trains carried 10.5m passengers but last year that number was 650,000. In 1989 the railways carried 25,000 tonnes of freight a day but in 2009 they were carrying barely 25-30,000 tonnes a month. In 1989 the railways employed more than 8,000 people. That figure now stands at 1,720, and 95% of them are on the minimum wage, which amounts to €123 ($159).

What strikes me about Mr Gjikolli and his colleagues is their dedication, despite everything. Last year the railways had an income of €9m, of which €5m came straight from the government. The rest was from freight and renting out railway premises. I ask how much comes from selling tickets and we do a quick back-of-an-envelope calculation. The answer is €346,153. We are like firemen, lament the assembled managers. All they can do they say, is sprint around fixing everything that breaks. In theory they have 78 locomotives, but only 18 to 20 actually work, and the rest are cannibalised to keep the others going.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/07/albanian_railways_minority_pursuit

There is more historical info here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ak/hekurudha/


The trains and the track are now in a very sorry state. All the rolling stock in use has been donated by or bartered from other countries. Nearly all the windows are cracked, have holes in them or are missing altogether. Not all doors are present either. They are pulled by Class T669 diesel locomotives which were built in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 80s.

The track is overgrown with weeds pretty much everywhere and the trains have to go very slowly in places (in some instances pretty much walking speed). I noticed a lot of defunct signalling equipment - I'm not sure how the signalling works now but I imagine it doesn't have to be very elaborate as on much of the network there's only one train a day in each direction.

Tickets are very cheap and it was fairly clear that the trains are really only used by people who can't afford the alternatives, which are buses and privately run minibuses. Going anywhere is quicker by road than rail. It's pretty much a skeleton service, with one train operating on each of the longer lines, departing early in the morning and then forming the return journey later in the day.

I've just had a look in an old Thomas Cook European timetable from 2003 and I see that then, on the Pogradec-Tirana line there were two services a day and the journey took more than hour less than it took me. The overall impression is that the railways are just being left to die of starvation.

Although it was fun to travel on such a rickety old network for the novelty value, it was also really sad to see things in such a bad state. It's unclear what the future holds: I've seen mention of an EU feasibility study looking at putting some investment in but haven't been able to find out more (if anyone knows about this I'd be interested to hear).

There is no connection to the rest of the European network except by a freight-only line, so getting in and out of Albania isn't all that straightforward by public transport - I've described the routes I took on the Albania thread in the travel section.

I'm going to start by cheating slightly and posting some photos of the journey from Skopje in Macedonia up to Bitola from where I continued into Albania by road transport. The journey from Skopje up to Bitola is thoroughly recommended to anyone who enjoys rail journeys by the way - also fairly ancient trains but the track's much better than in Albania so they can go at a fair speed, up river valleys and tunnels and through mountains until you come out onto a plain where Bitola is located.

Night train from Belgrade to Skopje...

Early morning arrival in the lovely Skopje station

Afternoon train to Bitola. This is what I call a "proper train".

Nearing Bitola

 

[teuchter]

Pogradec - Tirana

The first trip I did was from Pogradec to Tirana, the capital of Albania.

This journey covers about 190km and is timetabled to take 7 hours 40min. An average speed of just over 25km/h, or 15mph.

This is the scene that greets you when you roll up at Pogradec station...

Waiting for the train to arrive (it will have left Tirana at 5.30am in the morning)

The train was formed of two coaches - they are ex DB Regio coaches, which I found slightly surreal as I'm used to travelling on these on efficient German local services. You can see a lot of the windows are all smashed up, although apart from this they weren't in too bad a condition.

 

[teuchter]

Ticket from Pogradec to Tirana

Running at a sedate pace along the shore of Lake Ohrid

This line passes through some very attractive landscapes, particularly between Pogradec and Elbasan where much of the country is quite mountainous

At Perrenjas there is the sad sight of row upon row of abandoned engines and carriages. I'd say there were at least 30 engines sitting here rusting away.

Approaching Elbasan

 

[teuchter]

It's not entirely clear why so many windows are broken...whether it's just because the carriages can't be stored securely overnight or whether it's some kind of indication of how many Albanians feel about their railways. Maybe there is some kind of association with Hoxha days?

Interior -

It might have been nice to take some photos of the assortment of other passengers travelling but I felt this would be too intrusive. The train was reasonably full for most of the journey. It was staffed by two conductresses, a couple more selling snacks and drinks, and a policeman. They were all quite friendly to me, giving me grapes they'd pulled off vines by the lineside as we'd rumbled past. They assumed I was Italian to start with - I don't think they see many tourists on the trains but most of those that they do are Italian (Italy is linked by ferry). There was quite a bit of joking around in general although largely lost in translation as they didn't speak any English. They seemed happy enough in their work. The policeman was slightly less amiable but didn't give me any hassle. At one point the train ground to a sudden halt and a police van pulled up alongside on the road... there was some shouting and people running through the train but I've no idea what it was all about. After a while we continued on our way.

Arrival into Tirana, late in the evening, was into a dark and largely deserted station. It consists of just two platforms. There weren't that many people on board for the last little bit. I had to find my way out of the station by a kind of side gate.

 

[teuchter]

The second trip was from Tirana to Shkoder in the north of the country. Again, only one train makes the return trip on this line every day. The journey takes 3.5 hours and is just under 100km so the average speed on this trip is about 30km/h or 18mph.

Tirana station departure board - effectively showing all the trains that run in Albania

Tirana station

Next to the station there was a market going on with people selling fruit and vegetables and chickens and stuff. A little bit before departure the train horn sounded and some of these people started gathering up their stuff. I realised that they had come from places along the railway line and must have come into Tirana on the early morning service, to sell at the market, and were now returning home. Someone I spoke to on the train said that it could get very cold on the morning service on account of the lack of windows and heating.

The Shkoder train was the one on the right.

Looking out from the end of the platform

 

[teuchter]

This train was made up of old Italian compartment carriages with a bashed-up luggage van at the front which I'm guessing was partly there for the market traders to use.

Approaching Vore where the engine runs round to change ends

Inside the baggage van. The open door was just flapping about. I guess if anyone fell out at least the train wasn't going too fast.

 

[teuchter]

More dead trains

That's it.

If you fancy taking a trip on Albania railways... go for it! Some of the most interesting rail journeys I've taken in a while. There aren't many places you can travel on trains like these and on a genuine working railway - in Europe at least. They might not be there for much longer - who knows.

 

[teuchter]

For reference, here's a map - courtesy of this excellent site.

 

[Sunray]

This is the scene that greets you when you roll up at Pogradec station...

Ohh, nice van.

 

[Crispy]

Ace pics and story teuchter reminds me of the trains in south America, but in just slightly better nick...

 

[Cobbles]

"Railways of Albania" - isn't that a chapter from Holidays in Hell?

 

[teuchter]

Ace pics and story teuchter reminds me of the trains in south America, but in just slightly better nick...

It's kind of funny - aside from the broken windows the carriages aren't really in *too* bad nick; it's just that they are the kind of things I'm used to travelling on fairly recently in their original countries. It felt particularly strange being on the ex-German stock (in fact I saw quite a few of the same still in regular use on my way back through Germany whilst heading back to London). All the safety notices are still there in German, telling you not to stand here or lean out there, but amidst the missing windows and doors flapping open and everything.

 

[Crispy]

I meant more the tracks and stations

You could have told me that was Peru

or Ecuador

and I'd believe you. wonky tracks, shattered stations, slooooow trains. romantic and sad

 

[teuchter]

Those are some seriously wonky tracks in the last picture...

 

[Crispy]

Yeah, no trains on them for 10 years

 

[teuchter]

It's sad that it so often seems the case that 'developing' countries see their railways as part of the old order and consequently don't really care about them. The money goes into building new roads and clogging up the cities with cars instead. At least it's good to see that China seems to be putting investment into its railways as part of the country's modernisation.

 

[strung out]

what a fantastic story and pictures. thanks for sharing. i'm starting to get the feeling that my first big holiday in years will be a european train trip.

 

[teuchter]

Do it before it's too late, strung out!

The railways of Europe are getting progressively less interesting and more samey. Starting in the western countries and gradually moving east..modernisation will catch up with Eastern Europe eventually too.

 

[JWH]

Verrr interesting.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Smashing pics, very interesting.

 

[JWH]

Dropped a line to Seat61 dude? Although he seems to have eased up on the updates to his page, he's still the main source.

 

[pogofish]

Excellent work! - Thanks

 

[teuchter]

Dropped a line to Seat61 dude? Although he seems to have eased up on the updates to his page, he's still the main source.

Yeah I have done already actually - I said if he wanted to use any of my photos he'd be welcome to do so.

 

[twentythreedom]

trains are great. i went inter-railing in '87 and '89 all over europe, (trainspotter and hornby owner as a kid too) and i love seeing all this decrepit old infrastructure..

you been to india, teuchter? you'd fucking love it, seriously!

23

 

[Mumbles274]

Top stuff

 

[teccuk]

Great thread.

Inspired to go to Albania and take a ganders before it goes... with luck the value of a decent railway network will be realised before Albania gives up. Perhaps EU integration etc might help?

Great posts and OP.

 

[teuchter]

you been to india, teuchter? you'd fucking love it, seriously!

No, I've not. I kind of have a thing about going places which aren't popular destinations and I have an image of India just being full of teenage backpackers. Probably totally unjustified of course.

I enjoyed the various documentaries about Indian railways that were on BBC4 recently though. And that film a couple of years ago...forgotten the name for a minute...about the three brothers who end up on a train across India.

 

[strung out]

the darjeeling limited - great film

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Great pics, teuchter.

 

[teuchter]

the darjeeling limited - great film

That's the one.