About this journey

Čakovec station sits at a notable railway junction in northern Croatia, where the M501 line departs northward toward the Slovenian border. That line carries a distinction: opened on 24 April 1860 as part of a route linking Nagykanizsa to Pragersko, it was the first railroad built in present-day Croatia, originally conceived to connect Budapest with the Vienna–Trieste railway. Between 2020 and 2024 the entire Čakovec–Kotoriba section underwent full reconstruction, which included new passenger platforms and rebuilt level crossings, raising the maximum permitted speed to 100 km/h.

The route crosses the River Mura, a crossing with a fraught past — in 1941 the bridge was blown up, though a replacement was in place before the war ended. Beyond the border the line converges on Pragersko, a key Slovenian junction where the cross-border route meets the main line running between Ljubljana and Maribor. The final stretch follows that main corridor into Maribor, where the journey ends at a station first erected in 1844 and most recently upgraded in 2021. The ride moves from Croatia's oldest railway corridor, newly rebuilt, through a border crossing defined by wartime history, to one of Slovenia's principal rail hubs.