About this journey

The journey departs from Zagreb Glavni kolodvor, a station designed by Budapest architect Ferenc Pfaff and officially opened on 18 August 1892, its construction driven by the surge in traffic that followed the opening of the continuous Budapest–Rijeka railway line in 1873. That line — today designated M202 — first took shape in 1865 between Zagreb and Karlovac before extending its full 229 kilometres to Rijeka, reaching the port city on 6 September 1873.

Electrification of the M202 came in stages: work began in 1953 from the Rijeka end and was completed through to Zagreb by 1970, initially under the 3 kV DC system. For decades the station at Moravice served as a multi-system interchange, where locomotives changed between electrification regimes mid-journey. The line was subsequently unified to the 25 kV AC national standard, with the final Moravice–Rijeka section converted in December 2012. Approaching Rijeka, the line is notably engineered for a steep descent toward the port, one of the more demanding passages on the route.

The journey ends at Rijeka station, itself also the work of Ferenc Pfaff, built between 1889 and 1891 in a neoclassical style with a 150 m arcaded façade. The two termini, shaped by the same hand and the same imperial ambition, frame a route that took well over a century to reach its current, unified form.