About this journey

Gračac station sits on the Lika railway — officially line M604, running 220 km from Oštarije south through the Croatian interior to Split — the sole unelectrified rail corridor connecting continental Croatia with the Dalmatian coast. The segment from Gračac to Knin holds a particular place in that history: it was the final stretch to open, completing the Zagreb–Split and Šibenik link on 25 July 1925, amid what contemporary accounts described as great celebrations. Construction of the line had begun in spring 1913, carried out by the Grünwald und Schiffer company, and at its peak in June 1914 engaged 14,000 workers. Because the entire Lika railway remains unelectrified, diesel traction is required throughout, and the HŽPP 2044 locomotive handles the run.

Knin, the destination, is one of Croatia's most significant railway junctions, where M604 meets the lines toward Zadar and Šibenik. The Una railway arrived here in 1948 and the Knin–Zadar railway in 1967, consolidating the station's role as a crossroads of the Croatian network. The city itself carries layered history — it served as the capital of the medieval Croatian Kingdom and, between 1991 and 1995, as the centre of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, a period that left the railway infrastructure heavily damaged and required extensive post-war reconstruction. The cab ride from Gračac therefore moves between two poles: the triumphant completion of a national railway project a century ago, and a junction still marked by more recent upheaval.