After a brief, and yet very unsuccessful existence, the Split Metro is getting shut down tomorrow.
It was in operation for 142 days, and ever since it was introduced on June the 11th, it was quite obvious to most that it wasn’t going to be successful, so Split’s municipal transport company “Promet” announced quietly that this Sunday, November 3rd, at 21:30 is the last time the train will be operating. They haven’t really announced it at all, just the schedule on the Promet’s website shows that it won’t be operating after that.
In its unsuccessful 142 days, Croatian media supposes that it hasn’t seen that many passengers. It often operated completely empty, and only took staff members from the Split ferry port to the Kopilica station (yes, there was just one station, and the distance it covered was around 2 kilometres). The ticket was 11 kuna, so if you have one of them, you have a piece of history you might want to hold onto.
Slobodna Dalmacija asked Croatian Railways Passenger Transport (HŽ) about the future of the line if maybe it would operate again next summer, but they replied that there are no plans for that as of now. The trains that serviced this line will run to Kaštela in the upcoming period. Supposedly, Kaštela asked for another rail line, and this is how that problem has been solved.
We’ve seen so many jokes and puns directed at the project which was doomed from its inception, as it never really made sense in 2019 when none of the things it was supposed to support became fully operational. Maybe, sometime in the future, once the bus terminal finally gets moved to Kopilica, it will make sense to bring the Split Metro back. Or even something a bit more modern.
