About this journey

Maribor station, erected in 1844 when Austrian Empire rail first reached the city, remains the departure point for one of Slovenia's quieter cross-country routes. Upgraded in 2021, the station still carries the character of its nineteenth-century origins before the line heads northeast into the Slovenian lowlands.

The route moves toward the Prekmurje region, a historically contested plain along the Mura River that remained part of Hungary until 1919. The section approaching Murska Sobota follows a line that opened in 1924, one of the few railways built in Slovenia after World War I, threading through agricultural flatlands that define this corner of the country. Slovenian Railways itself was constituted in 1991 from the Ljubljana division of the former Yugoslav Railways, inheriting a network now spanning 1,229 km of standard-gauge track.

Murska Sobota station serves as the regional capital of Prekmurje and marks a significant endpoint in more than a geographic sense. On 29 January 2010, the first Holocaust memorial in Slovenia was unveiled here, dedicated to the exile of Jews from the Prekmurje region. Beyond the station, a rebuilt single-track line continues to Hodoš, restored in 1999 to reconnect with the Hungarian railway system — a reminder that this quiet terminus sits at a meeting point of national borders and layered histories.