Exploring wartime steam locomotives and narrow-gauge trains of Bosnia & Herzegovina

Last Spring I paid a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina to see it’s living railway history. I explored peculiar railway locations near the city of Tuzla and found active wartime steam engines (Kriegslock) and one amazing narrow-gauge railway. While exploring both locations, I managed to communicate with local people and got some insides about local life. While visiting the narrow-gauge railway, I was lucky to ride inside a locomotive to the coal mine which made my experience in Bosnia even more exciting.

Whether you’re a railway enthusiast or not, this video offers a rare glimpse into the past and present of extraordinary railways of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more railway adventures!

hello world it’s vagabon here welcome to my brand new video I’m starting this episode in the town of lucat in Bosnia and Herzegovina this is my second visit to this lovely country finally in summer and this time I’m going to focus on the exploration of some peculiarities of local railway Network so this town of luat is famous for the fact that this is one of the very few places in Europe where you can still find operational steam locomotives steam locomotives that were produced in Germany in 20th century still operate in the vicinity of this town they operate on some coal mines so they transport cargo it’s highly likely that in the nearest Future their service will be suspended just because of the fact that they are too old it takes a lot of effort to maintain them but task number one is to find these team locomotives actually right now now we are approaching the railway station of Lookout I see the dispatcher Tower and actually zero steam locomotives I can say that this Railway is historical not just because of the fact that there are still some operational steam locomotives but also because of the equipment which is used here look at this level crossing it has this kind of chain mechanisms you can see these kind of wires that are stretched from the building of the dispatcher Tower because he also controls the switches so he uh pulls up and pulls down different controllers to consequently close and open the barrier of this level crossing okay I’ve just discovered that the steam locomotive still operate here so they probably went for the loading of coal and the actual coal mine is located not here not in luat but somewhere in the vicinity of this place so basically the guys on the background just told me to go straight and yeah highly likely that I will encounter this kind of the coal mine and potentially see this team locomotive or maybe it’s just better to communicate with the actual Railway workers because that guys just seem to be locals they didn’t seem to be Railway workers but here is the railway station so let’s try to talk to these Railway guys for uh-huh okay uhhuh so this is the dispatcher Tower dispatcher in this Tower uh change switches by using these wire mechanisms there are controllers inside this tower now the locomotive will follow another track and just maybe leave the [Music] station mechanism can I see the controllers of the switch yes oh wow yeah so we are in the building of the dispatcher here are the mechanisms that are used to change the switches so basically if you pull this controller up the switch changes to another truck this is how the mechanism works by the way some of the cables SL wires that as I initially thought were designed to change switches they are also connected to SEMA fores currently at this position the semap for are closed so when the traffic light/ 4 is open it in cleanses that way like 45° okay we are finally in the industrial area around the mine where steam locomotives work I already see two of them okay apparently we are in and we can finally see this realtime steam locomotive look at that uh what year is the production of this locomotive do you know uh I think it is uh 42 42 so this is the wartime locomotive produced in Germany I think yes yes uh around like 1940s and it’s still in operation in near TLA coal mines there is also another steam locomotive which is out of service right now so here we are in the actual steam locomotive it’s all working this is the soap for the coal this is the coalman yeah look at that it’s all burning inside so it’s ready for service and here is the tender this bike is called tender it’s full of coal which is picked up by the shallow from here and put straight there basically here are all of these mechanisms so it’s all like manual you know it’s almost 80 years old even more this is the view from the train driver cabin backwards it’s always open yes yes it’s never closing yeah yeah yeah just now we heard the whistle of the same locomotive currently we are standing next to the second locomotive which is out of service for several days something just got broken here but it also works at this Coal Mine near TSLA it was also produced around the same year as that one so it’s also like the word time locomotive made in Germany in like 1940s look how massive their wheels are they are lubricated so that means that it’s like the functional one functional steam locomotive two of them are working here basically they shunt trains like with these kind of wagons all around the station and then that trains that are marshalled with the help of these team locomotives they are pulled either there or Direction by diesel locomotive this is broke here one of these pipes yes no no no up there aha so like the boiler part yes yes ahuh okay do you think how much time will it take to repair this locomotive month about month one month so salary in this world is in this country is very small you have to work two three jobs for living what would be the average salary let’s say in TLA in TLA uh it is about €300 yes in to this is the monthly salary here yes well yeah not a lot not not not not at all we have uh here a salary of 500 hour mhm so it’s a bit kind of a bit more than average for this city yes yese [Music] [Music] spe [Music] fore fore even though it’s been 30 years since the end of the Bosnian War you can still find the reminiscences of that crazy period of time such as shell traces on the facades of buildings here they are you can see them pretty much everywhere in the country in the capital city in Sara in Province like here in Tuzla even though I didn’t manage to have a reasonable breakfast as well as the reasonable lunch finally I can have reasonable dinner so I ordered the grilled chicken with some kind of salad and uh french fries and also they serve this kind of the bread so must be delicious and it cost just € 4 we are currently in the very center of the city and let me say that it looks very nice and livable I see a lot of people actually crowds of them TLA is rightfully claimed one of the most Multicultural cities in Bosnia and here cavina behind me you can see the mosque if I turn around you can see the like where is it well somewhere here must be the Dome of the Catholic Cathedral well possibly there are also some Orthodox Churches I’m not sure so this city is populated by serbs by bosnians probably by cows those to Catholics here is a mix of cultures and you can see it on the [Music] streets this is New Day in bosta and her Gina I’m still in TLA and decided to walk around different areas of the city today today is the holiday here is the celebration of the so-called Labor Day the majority of things just don’t work despite the fact that this is the celebration of the Labor Day nothing is really working aside from some maybe essential stores I’ve just got to TLA railway station which seems to be completely abandoned in the past trains from at least surviva arrived here maybe from other places of bosnan heroina currently all the rails are Rusty and I have no idea when the last train arrived here probably many many years ago some kind of the river or maybe it’s just like the urban canel urban drainage canel uh right next to the living neighborhood actually almost no people today on the streets we are not that far from the city center and I literally see no one just occasionally cars are driving but that’s it so when it’s like the holiday time in this area pretty much everyone either leave it or stay at home but even markets and grocery stores do not work today I have no idea where I can get some more supplies aside from like small grocery stores but like chain supermarkets like this one they’re completely closed today as long as there is nothing to do anymore in TLA I decided to visit the depot where some of the steam locomotives stay where they fixed probably but well evidently the depot is closed and doesn’t seem to be possible to get inside it I see the car there so it’s secured so I will not sneak there but I already see some of the old locomotives even two of them here’s one of the steam locomotives on the left and and another couple oh maybe there are four of them four steam locomotives on the right all right guys this is my second day of the exploration of bosan Railways actually the third day but yesterday was like the holiday and nothing really worked and even though I filmed a couple of footages they are kind of useless because I didn’t see trains in action and that’s what I’m hoping to do today I’m currently in the town of osava SL banovich it is relatively close to TLA and this place is known for its Narrow Gauge Railway it is still in operation this narau Railway in bonovich transfers Co from nearby mines and uh here in the town of osava is the trans shipment point of coal so it’s transported from uh Narrow Gauge trains to Broad gauge ones there is also a lot of trucks that transport this coal to probably different areas not only to TLA I see some trucks with Serbian license plates so yeah it’s quite a significant location for local economy here we go there must be at least two steam locomotives that are not in operation anymore this is one of them which was produced in 1961 somewhere in Yugoslavia we are in the cap and this is Narrow Gauge steam locomotive it’s not broad gauge that’s why its sizes generally like dimensions are smaller than the dimension of the standard gauge locomotive and just behind the building of the depot is another abundant steam locomotive here it is and as you can see it stays on the triple truck or let to say double truck so it was operational B for or standard gauge Railway and like Narrow Gauge trains and finally there is the third abundance team locomotive this one doesn’t seem to be operational at all it also relates to the stand standard gauge Railway and both of the standard gauge steam locomotives probably only worked for shunting at this like turn shipment point of coal so they didn’t really run far away from this place at least during the last years of their exploitation there is the Mining facility Well maybe we can see something yeah look the coal is currently loaded into like uh standard gauge wagons there it is and here is another interesting Rolling Stock we are on the narrow gate railway station which is active and here is this lovely diesel locomotive that actually pulls cold trains from the mine to here yeah this is how it works basically they open the side doors of the wagon to unload the coal in that sort of place currently they are closed so call inside the wagons there is another locomotive which pulls this like partly loaded Co train through the trans shipment point it moves slowly to change just like two or three wagons there is the person who opens them wait a minute that’s how it is done they open the bottom doors and load and like the cool starting to just Vanishing under wagons [Music] the workers actually seem to be quite chilly about my presence here they didn’t even try to kick me off from here they basically doing their job got it so the freight train from the mine has just arrived to the facility it’s going to stay here for some time then the locomotive that has just pulled the train is going to connect to another empty train and go to the mine and I have just spoken to the train engineer apparently he all allowed me to ride with him in the diesel locomotive well if I understood him correctly this is the wi for today probably because that’s probably the unique opportunity to do so anyway there is no passenger service at all okay so we are in the diesel locomotive in the narrow gaug Ste oh sorry diesel locomotive we are going to do some shunting this is the control panel the control panel if you go that way this is the speedometer [Music] I think [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] off [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah let the [Music] [Music] all right we have just returned to bonovich Mining facility and yeah that was an epic journey that I personally didn’t expect to conduct but friendly train Engineers allowed me to ride with them to the mine and return here basically the same way yeah the whole journey to the mine took approximately 30 minutes and uh 30 to 40 minutes back so we will probably see each other in my new video thank you for watching this one don’t forget to subscribe to my channel hit the Bell not to miss new videos and of course click the like button and write your comments see you