About this journey

Bijelo Polje station in the northern Montenegrin highlands marks the border between the Serbian and Montenegrin sections of the Belgrade–Bar railway, and it is here that this cab ride begins its 175 km descent toward the Adriatic. The decision to build the line was made in 1952 as a national project of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and after 25 years of construction it was inaugurated on 28 May 1976. Electrification across its full length at 25 kV 50 Hz AC followed at the end of 1977. The engineering demands of the route are embedded in its statistics: the line passes through 254 tunnels with a combined length of 114,435 m and over 435 bridges totalling 14,593 m, while the highest point on the Montenegrin section reaches 1,032 m above sea level near Kolašin before the line descends steeply toward Podgorica at a maximum gradient of 25‰.

On the Montenegrin section, the maximum permitted speed is up to 80 km/h, a constraint that reflects the condition of the infrastructure today. The journey ends at Bar station, served by both Montenegro Railways and Serbian Railways, where the mountain terrain of the interior gives way to the Adriatic coast.