About this journey

Savski Marof station sits at the western edge of a corridor that has carried international traffic since 1862, when the Savski Marof–Zagreb section opened as part of a line from Zidani Most to Sisak in the former Kingdom of Croatia under Habsburg rule. That same alignment later became the route of the Orient Express from 1919 to 1977, and it remains part of Pan-European Corridor X, which threads from Salzburg and Ljubljana toward Skopje and Thessaloniki. Between 2021 and 2022 the 17.8 km section between Savski Marof and Zagreb West Station was fully reconstructed, raising the design speed to up to 120 km/h; the work included rehabilitation of three bridges — Krapina, Lužnica and Vrabeščak.

Through Zagreb the journey transitions onto the M102 railway, a 22.202 km double-tracked, fully electrified line aligned with Pan-European Corridor V branch b that connects the capital to Dugo Selo. The eastern section between Zagreb Borongaj and Dugo Selo was reconstructed between 2013 and 2014, permitting line speeds of up to 140 km/h on open track. Dugo Selo station marks the journey's end as a significant junction where lines toward Koprivnica and Novska converge, serving a town of 17,676 residents roughly 20 km from Zagreb city centre — a destination that is simultaneously a quiet eastern exurb and a node for onward travel across the region.