About this journey

Ljubljana railway station, completed on 18 April 1848, stands as one of Slovenia's principal rail hubs, serving domestic routes alongside international EuroCity connections to Vienna and Trieste. From here, the line to Jesenice runs northwest, following a corridor that has carried trains since the mid-nineteenth century. As of autumn 2024, the station is undergoing a major expansion costing around 167 million euros, with completion planned for 2026, and construction works are visible in and around the platforms at the journey's start.

Jesenice station opened in 1870 as a stop on the Tarvisio–Ljubljana Railway, and by 1906 it had grown into a significant junction when two lines of the Cisleithanian New Alpine Railways project were completed: the Bohinj Railway toward Trieste and the Karawanks Railway, which crosses into Austria through the Karawanks Tunnel, opened that same year, continuing to Villach. The section of the Tarvisio–Ljubljana Railway beyond Jesenice was closed in 1967–69, leaving Jesenice as the northern terminus of that route. The station building itself was destroyed by Allied air raids in early 1945 and rebuilt between 1953 and 1955 to a design notable for its modernist character — a stark white marble facade with hexagonal windows. The station sits in the Sava Dolinka valley, close to the borders with both Austria to the north and Italy to the west, giving this quiet terminus an outsized place in Alpine railway geography.