About this journey

Zagreb Glavni kolodvor station, opened on 18 August 1892 to a design by Hungarian architect Ferenc Pfaff, serves as the departure point for the M202 line — the 229-kilometre railway connecting Zagreb with the Adriatic port of Rijeka. With 7 platforms and 9 tracks, the station anchors Croatia's principal west-bound rail corridor, which also forms part of the Pan-European Corridor V Branch B linking Rijeka through Zagreb to Budapest.

The M202 first opened in 1865 between Zagreb and Karlovac as a branch of the Zidani most–Sisak line; the extension onwards to Rijeka followed on 6 September 1873. Ownership passed from the Austrian Southern Railway Company to the Hungarian Government in 1880, and after the First World War the line was absorbed into the railways of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Electrification came in stages: the section toward Rijeka was first energised at 3 kV DC in 1970, then converted to 25 kV 50 Hz AC in 1985 to match the full-line standard, which permits speeds of up to 140 km/h. The 6112 Class locomotive leads this working through the Kupa river country south of Zagreb, past Karlovac, and into the rising terrain beyond.

As the route climbs toward Oštarije, the landscape shifts from the broad lowlands around Zagreb to the forested ridges of the Dinaric interior. Oštarije itself is a significant junction: here the M202 corridor meets the M604 Lička pruga — the Lika railway opened in 1925 — which branches away toward Knin and Split. The contrast between the electrified, double-tracked ambitions of the M202 and the single-track Lika line makes Oštarije a quiet but telling pivot point in Croatia's railway geography.