About this journey

Zagreb Glavni kolodvor station anchors the start of line M202, the main corridor southwest toward Karlovac and the Adriatic coast. The station was inaugurated on 18 August 1892, designed by Hungarian architect Ferenc Pfaff and financed by the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV). Its Neoclassical reception building stretches 186.5 m and was among the largest public buildings in 19th-century Zagreb. The opening came in direct response to the growth in rail traffic that had followed the Budapest–Rijeka railway of 1873, and on inauguration day the first departing train left for Rijeka at 10:35 a.m. A direct connection toward Karlovac was built as part of the same infrastructure, eliminating a detour via Zagreb South Station for trains on this corridor.

The journey runs southwest on line M202 through Karlovac before reaching Oštarije, the point where the electrified Zagreb–Rijeka main line meets the diverging M604 Lika railway. That junction defines Oštarije's significance: the electrification that begins at Zagreb ends in this area, beyond which the 220 km Lika line continues as a single-track, un-electrified railway toward Knin and Split. The locomotive hauling this train, an HŽPP 2044 of the EMD/ĐĐ GT22HW-2 type, covers the full distance from the grand, ornamented terminus in Zagreb's city centre to the junction where the wires end and Croatia's difficult inland terrain begins.