Another “success” for Croatian Railways.
A train departed Split last night for Zagreb at 21:44 and was scheduled to arrive in te capital at around 05:00. However, at 03:00 the train stopped at Perušić, not even close to Zagreb. After many hours of waiting without receiving any information, passengers managed to reach the Zagreb train station shortly before 11:00 on Saturday morning, reports 24sata.hr on 1 July 2017.
“And to think I could have taken a bus. My friend and I are going to buy a car and we have opted for a train. Never again. This is a disgrace, a catastrophe,” says one tired and disappointed passenger of the Croatian Railways who travelled from Split to Zagreb.
As stated, the ordeal started at the Split train station at 21:44 pm on Friday. They were supposed to arrive in Zagreb at around 05:00, but they stopped in Perušić at around 03:00 and were left waiting there for hours without any explanation. It turned out that they had to wait for four hours for a replacement locomotive.
“It was dark, there was nobody around, and no one told us anything. I called the Croatian Railways complaint service. They said coldly that we have the right to demand a refund, adding that the locomotive was broken. Well, they could have organised buses to come and pick us up,” says the disappointed traveller.
He adds that there were about 150 passengers on the train, and almost half of them were foreigners. “What will these people think about Croatia? This is not possible to happen anywhere else,” said an angry passenger at about 10:00 on Saturday morning.
“We have just passed Ogulin in the Gorski Kotar region; we have maybe another hour, an hour and a half. I only want to arrive at my destination finally and I will never again use a train,” said the passenger who had to travel from Split to Zagreb for 13 hours in the 21st century.
The Croatian Railways’ web page stated that, due to certain problems, the train was expected to be delayed by about 240 minutes. According to their calculations, the train was supposed to reach its destination before 10:00, but it actually arrived at around 11 am, which means that the train was delayed by more than 300 minutes or 5 hours.
Croatian Railways recently managed to impress travellers with its unique “Sea by Train” marketing campaign, in which it promotes the idea of using trains to go to coastal destinations. One of the offers which they promote as “carefree, with no traffic jams, and at reasonable prices” is a train service from Osijek to Šibenik, which includes three changes of trains and takes 23 hours.
