The worst (or best) train journey in Europe? - Durres to Elbasan, Albania
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- In the summer of 2021 I caught the train from Durres to Elbasan, Albania. Join me as I take the most unique train journey in Europe, and encounter some ghosts from Albania's communist past.
Background
The Albanian communist party came to power in 1946. The isolationist regime prioritised the militarisation of the country. Building a national railway was also a successful objective of the regime. Car ownership was effectively banned during communist rule. The train became the most popular form of transport. The Albanian communist regime was overthrown by the people in 1991. The train service has been left to decline ever since. As the daily service dwindles down to practically nothing, we take - The Last Communist Train in Europe.
They are supposed to be changing the tracks to brand new rails and train by an italian company by summer of 2023 for 100million euros from durres to tirana and future trains in albania to
Hopefully not AnsaldoBreda, here in Sweden they’re very well known for their poor quality
@@jatterhog AnsaldoBreda doesn’t exist anymore
@@germanopolito5294 okay, “Hitachi Rail Italy” then. The exact same company.
Really? From Trenitalia?
@@lorenzo_de_paolis no it’s another Italian company
I love that almost all of the cars are (west) German n-type carriages. These were still in regular use in Germany until the 2010s and I kind of miss them. Of course, they were not in that terrible state of disrepair back then.
Given the carriages seen here are already painted red (which was done after rail privatization in Germany in the mid-90s) and have one of the modernized interiors they are actually much younger than the Fall of Communism and must have been delivered to Albania some time in the 2000s.
Sorry, this are East German railway cars. You can see it at the standard doors type from Görlitz.
Nope. Not n-type/n-Wagen. Those are so-called y-Wagen, originally East-German Bmh, which were modernized in the 1990s to Byu/AByu types (and which is the origin of the "y-Wagen" moniker with lowercase "y").
@@reinhardheim6008 look at the pics. Both east and west German carriages are in service there.West German cars are seen in the background at 9:22.
n wagen sind die besten
@@steffenrosmus9177 Where at the timestamp you have given do you see any West-German carriages in the background? There are only 2 y-Wagen (East-German coaches modernized in the 1990s) seen there...
I travelled on the Albanian network in the mid 1960s. The trains were not vandalised and looked like it was made out of Mechano. The roof was polished aluminium held on with bolts. My carriage had a corridor with fold down seats. It was clean, and almost seemed clockwork though obviously it was not. Very different and fun to ride on.
No way-- well done
I am sure they used Chinese carriages back then.
@@cehaem2 No. German. Those times chinese carriages where dreadfull and pulled by steam trains. Real third world.
Sind y-Wagen der ehemaligen DDR
So, you travelled to Albania under Hoxha's rule? Wow, that sounds impressive! How difficult was it to obtain a visa? How free (or monitored) were you for your local trips?
To those who are asking, what caused this? Political corruption
Albania has a rather unique story. Basically the whole country (including politicians) was defrauded by pyramid schemes that lead to catastrophic economic downfall and violent uprisings in 1997. The country still hasn't recovered from this.
And the dead hand of communism.
What caused this?
One word: capitalism
@@klarastimelapses communism,don’t see many trains like this in capitalist countries
@@sr7791 I do in Albania, which is a capitalist country now, isnt it? Communism is a very bad argument. Communist Czechoslovakia and many other European countries had "for the time" very good rail service. But the transition from communism isn't rather simple. It takes decades to build a functioning economy.
That train station in Durrës still has more seating than any station in Germany
And more seating that Bristol Airport departures lol.
Greetings from former Czechoslovakia, the country that built the locomotives depicted in the video.
Skoda locomotives are the best!
@@Schlipperschlopper So not the ones in the video.
Those carriages are german lol
@@Gurrowski Thanks for correction.
Some train station were very beautiful if you see them between 1980_89
As old as these trains are, there is something charming and nostalgic about speeding down a track in an old rail car. For years my hometown of New York City had subway cars that were much like these: covered in graffiti, broken windows, etc. Yet I sometimes look back on those times fondly. Of course, the trains in Albania have far more beautiful views outside the window! I would love to visit one day. Love from the USA
Jamaica to Montauk is glorious, one of the best train trips on the east coast
Yes, it's true, there are very few trains in Albania left, not even Tirana has a functioning railway station any more... I think it's a similar situation in Moldova - just a few domestic trains left plus one international train between Chisinau and Bucuresti. A "few trains, many buses" tendency is typical for poor countries. (Iceland is a notable exception, however, it has no railways whatsoever, it probably sees no need in any, and it's nowhere near poor) But one still feels the Albanian spirit in this video. It reminds me personally of the time when our family just arrived in Germany and ended up in a residence hall for new immigrants where a third of the rest were Albanians (the others were Turks).
Malta doesn't have a railway either, and its GDP per capita is slightly higher than that of Italy nowadays. So not exactly poor either. It used to have a railway; a single line, single tracked, narrow gauge, between the capital Valletta and Mdina. It went down because of competition with the tram and buses (which also killed the tram). The last train ran in 1931, and the tram stopped two years prior.
There is talk of a metro system, but after the most recent elections all news of that has dried up, including the website that had been created for it.
@@SeverityOne Good that Mallorca was luckier than that. It still has an antique tram and an antique regional train (modern regional trains and a subway as well, for that matter).
I do not think there's any circomstance where Iceland can be considered poor.
@@RunawayTrain2502 And what did I say? Iceland is a notable exception. Not poor, but railless in spite of that.
Looks like the Albanians have more frequent service than most regions of Canada. Lucky if it's twice a week... on a single route.
Bosnian trains were like this way past 2010's. But its starting to change sloooowly.
Bulgarian trains were never so bad as these. But most of them are also old and full with graffiti.
I traveled on a train from Budapest to Sarajevo back in 2005. It was completely surreal....
I used to regurarely travel via local trains (stops at every station), from my hometown to capital, almost every weekend between 2013-2018. Local trains were just like this, dirty, not maintained, and outdated. Pretty much, whatever carriage got left from Yugoslavian days that wqs in somewhat useful condition, was on a local train. And the trips were sometimes eerie, when you're alone and sharing an almost empty old carriage with a couple of other shady poor characters.
Spotted two ex FS compartment coaches from italy in the final few seconds.
Chances are a lot of the graffiti came with them - ditto the ex DB/DR stock - as everything was offloaded to Albania from scrap lines. I imagine the acceptance paperwork said something like "It got here so it'll do."
The idea of inserting an assortment of shreds of songs from yesteryear was super cool.
Thank you! I really enjoyed doing that part of the video.
Die im Film gezeigten Eisenbahnwagen stammen aus der ehemaligen DDR. Und wurden als Wittenberger bezeichnet. Die in Albanien heutzutage eingesetzen Personenwagen waren vor ihrer Umsetzung nach Albanien, vornehmlich zwischen Gera und Leipzig von der DB eingesetzt worden.
Translation "The railway carriages shown in the film come from the former GDR. And were called Wittenbergers. The passenger coaches used in Albania today were mainly used by the DB between Gera and Leipzig before they were transferred to Albania."
Falsch, das sind keine "Wittenberger Wagen". Bitte genauer recherchieren. Es handelt sich bei diesen Wagen um ex Deutsche Reichsbahnwagen mit der Bezeichnung "Halberstädter Mitteleinstiegswagen".
@@telewag-travel Not correct! These wagons are not "Wittenberg wagons". These cars have always been known as the "Halberstädter Mitteleinstiegswagen" (Halberstadt car with doors in the middle). It is correct that the wagons were produced in the GDR and brought to Albania as used vehicles.
@@worldtradesurfer RICHTIG! Es sind die 'Halberstädter'.
@@worldtradesurfer Yes, they were extensively renovated in RSB-Design after Deutsche Bahn took over Deutsche Reichsbahn.
The Soviet Union at least provided Rail service.
The US no longer contributes enough to maintain the roads in the supposedly most affluent Nation on the planet.....
We seem to need to consider the reasons for the transportation choices we are offered?
Oh stop being so dramatic, you cannot compare the US and its infrastructure to poorer nations in the world.
It's not even comparable.
@@KHK14 the US has a reduced a reasonably decent Mass transit system to a pathetic government provided puddle jumper.
Since 1967 the US has taken the mail from the rails, and fattened Oil Company Investors Dividend Checks.
You might work on a little economic awareness?
You do not even want to spar with me Punk.....
@@KHK14 That's true. The infrastructure in the US is of course much better than in many poor South American or African countries, but it is in a worse state than many poor Eastern European countries with substantially lower GDPs than the US, and in a considerably worse state than in all comparably economically advanced countries, save for canada perhaps.
@@Mark_Hafer As a European who has travelled the world, lived in 5 nations (including the US).
Absolutely, you will be able to find up to 5 individual examples where some infrastructure is worse than in other places in the world.
But in 99.99% of cases, North American infrastructure is on par in terms of quality, level of maintenance, etc. to the rest of the developed world. - In many cases North American infrastructure standards are emulated elsewhere.
That does not mean that it is well designed or "smart" or at all utilitarian.
Only 38% of Americans have passports, meaning the majority of the citizens have never been outside of the US and have no idea what its like to live or travel through countries where the entire country is poor, rather than 1 district, or one part of a city or even a city at the most.
I really liked the 'Supposedly most affluent nation on the planet' expression - it actually owes trillions to the world and keeps borrowing! This may be why the contribution even to the road maintenance is so poor, forget the rail transport...
The most run down railway in Europe, graffiti and stone throwing are a national past time, I can imagine there is not much else for the youth there to do.
No money to make repairs, barely to keep running what is left.
The locomotives are all Czech built ChME3 built by ĈKD, in essence they are shunting engines and do have only 950hp, they can't provide any power to the train for heating and lighting.
In 1989 they acquired second hand German V200 diesel locomotives to replace steam and the ChME3 on passenger trains, but these were soon unusable due to poor maintenance and since the indestructible ChME3 is the only means to provide traction for the trains.
There are communist trains also in other Eastern European countries, like Romania, where the national company, except some Desiros from the 2000s, are still using fleet even as old as 1930, but mainly from the 70s.
Same in Bulgaria I think
the 30's you talk about are self motorised diesel units built in the 30's but rebuilt like 5 times. the last rebuild was i believe in early 2000's. Also all the blue old wagons you were talking about from the 70's are all out of order and are reconditioned constantly at grivita
@@cucginel1941 everyone knows that.
But as reconstructed and refurbished as they are, you can't compare them to other countries.
Except some that were refurbished recently, they actually are better than most of the coaches.
Eurail guide notes that Albania's Chinese built railroad cars were reduced to bits during the 1991 uprisings, and replaced by coaches donated by Italy. These cars came from Germany.
Yes, this are former East German cars that were modernized through the mid 1990s. Everything original. Just the head rests new.
@@reinhardheim6008 to me, they look exactly like what we have here in Hungary, nicknamed "halbi" or "halberstadti" as they came from Germany.
OMG, much of the rolling stock (especially carrieges except locomotives) is old 1960s-1980s Deutsche Bahn rolling stock from Germany (even having the since 1990s Deutsche Bahn paint job mostly red, but also while + grey)) ... I used such old carrieges even in the 2000s in Germany ...
P.S. I'm a German
No, shit Sherlock!
Ich sehe zuhauf Halberstädter, die sind dann gar noch neuer als 1985.
On a trip in 1996 I took trains from Tirana to Durres, Shkodra and Pogradec; very cheap (about three cents per trip), the old Czech locos and mostly Italian (?) stock - there was old Chinese stock around but I didn't see any in service. Windows, doors and gangways were missing. Locals seemed to all be using the buses.
I went back in 2010, Tirana station had been moved out of town, and most of the routes had closed down. Most locals seemed to be in surprisingly new looking Mercedes cars.
Many of the Albanian coaches are of Italian origin, for not speaking about the network, being upgraded by the Italian military "Genio" for years.
@@etr300302 At the end of video there are 2 Italian UIC-X wagons
There are still quite a few trains from the soviet/GDR era running in Germany and other countries, but none look in anyway like that, because they were actually cared for, it's not like they are inferior to their western counterparts. These trains were just left to rot away.
And Deutsche Bahn still uses Soviet BR232s to this day
@@detroitdieselseries5071nur ganz selten. Und auch nur im Gütervekehr, weil es ja auch noch nicht-elektrifizierte Strecken gibt. Den Güterverkehr übernimmt die Ostdeutsche BR 232, den Personenverkehr die Westdeutsche BR 218.
I'm a bit sad - When I took a train in my childhood (1990s in Germany) - it had been a train with these traincars... I still remember these swing doors that you only could open, when you reached forward for the handle, because you couldn't stand on the attached step.
Love the British Rail Intercity poster on the station wall…
Stolen probably
Yes that poster amused me, interesting that they chose the British HST over any other train, I imagine they copied it in the late 70s or early 80s
I live in Bulgaria and here we have the same trains. The only difference is that they don't have broken windows.
for a min i thought i was watching north korea's railway trains but then forgot their trains are 10 times better than albania's. rails network has long been forgotten by the government.
Actually in North Korea there's a law that people living near a railroad have to regularly clean the tracks and remove any weeds.
@@peeryoutube north Korea still a craaap country to live in though
@@Panagiotis_P Noone questions that, but they're actually very clean
Note the poster of the British Rail Intercity 125 at 1:02!
The bullet hole in the window really makes it for me
That this rambling, rolling wreck runs at all, or at least ran at time of filming, would seem to be a flat-out miracle. . .
You should have shown us a first class carriage ! Maybe it would have lighting when going through the tunnel ? It seems that many of the windows have defects, even holes in them ! Perhaps the ridership would increase if travel by train in Albania was free ? Lastly, I was not impressed by the quality of the graffiti.
True but crazy adventure
There are still many such old trains in Czech republic:)
Radši už nežvaň kraviny. Tak mizerné vlaky, jako jsou v Albánii, neuvidíš nikde jinde v Evropě, ani Asii, či Africe. Dokonce ani v Kosovu.
Yes but they looks much better than these ones.. (no broken windows, clean etc..)
The irony is that Tirana once had a robust train network that grew under Enver Hoxha's regime. Hoxha banned car ownership and wanted the citizens to walk or take mass transit. The rail network has completely declined since 1991, private car ownership has exploded (causing massive traffic & pollution), and billions of dollars have been spent on new motorways while the rail network rots away. Albania is making the same mistakes as the US did 100 years ago on a smaller scale. Granted, Albania's new highways are far smaller and less destructive than America's, and most of the cities are still walkable, but the country really needs to reinvest in rail infrastructure and get rid of it's addiction to cars. Albania wasn't built for cars, and there's no way its cities can handle increasing traffic. Mass transit is needed!
It's not the last.Hungary and especially Romania is full of much much older trains,especially here in Békés county where the most oldest train is from around 1950 with red star and being imported from USSR.The most common trains are from late 80s or even before.Although the maximum of modern trains are very late 90s trains in Békéscsaba since they put the money mostly into that city.
This looks like an East German carriage after 1989 (now completely wrecked obviously). Even in 1997 there were still some very original East German trains in use. They had a beige exterior and red vinyl seats. No graffiti or scratches. I also saw some rather antique subway trains in Berlin in November 1989. The absence of graffiti and other damage was nice.
It is wierd that they don't even use the tracks to service freight trains
the locomotives were manafactured in Czechoslovakia
This is correct. The loco had a made in Czechoslovakia plate on it stating this,
These carrieges looks like polish 120A car that still in use.
And despite the state of those trains, with their windows and doors hanging off, I bet you're still not allowed to smoke on them!
in Albania the cigarettes smoke you
The station at least doesn't look that different from the Amtrak at Rochester, NY
A lot of the Waggons are Ex-Deutsche Bahn Waggons
Some good old n-Wagons from Germany just right at the beginning on the left side of the screen. Oh what I miss those. A few ones are still running in south germany and when football matches are played, but most of them were scrapped - or obviously sold to Albania. Back in the days we had more than 5000 of them.
Funny though, that the first train you're riding with is a very rare redesign of those, which was not very popular because of the uncomfortable seats. The original "seats" were just very thick padded benches, even in second class much better than most of the stuff you get in first class nowadays.
Die schönen alten N-wagen 😢😢
Nope. Not n-Wagons. Those are so-called y-Wagons (originally East-German Bmh, which were modernized in the 1990s to Byu/AByu types, which was the origin of the "y-Wagen" moniker with lowercase "y").
@@elgonzo7239 Halberstädter? They never really came to the deep west area where I live. They look very similar to the Bnrz 728 with that strange roof.
@@DSBMAC13 I don't think so. The coaches of the train the ride took place in don't look like Bnrz. They are similiar, yes, but if you compare pictures of Halberstaedter and Bnrz, you'll notice that the coaches of the train are pretty identical to Halberstaedter.
Only every 2nd window of Halberstaedters can be opened, like the coach(es) in the video. If i am not mistaken, every window of Bnrz can be opened.
[EDIT: There are/were also variants of the Bnrz where only every 2nd window can be opened. Scratch this point. Sorry]
The roof of the coaches in the video is precisely the form found on Halberstaedters.
Look at the edge between the side and the front of the coaches. Typical for for coaches made in the GDR is the sharp edge between the side and the front. West-German coaches usually don't feature such sharp edges here (they are typically somewhat rounded to different degrees).
The size of the outermost small windows at the end of each side of the coaches is that of a Halberstaedter (while the Bnrz also have small windows, they appear to be somewhat wider).
At the front, the shape and size of recessed cavities for the ZWS (TCS) cables/plugs/sockets at the left and right edge match those of the modernized Halberstaedters with ZWS.
Then the construction of the steps underneath the exit doors. You can see them at the end of the video when the video shows the loco switching (around 9:19). These are typical for the steps found on Halberstaedters. They appear "free-floating" and are not "framed" like on the Bnrz.
Lastly, the bogies. You can see them also at the same timestamp at end of the video. These look like East-German GP 200 or Goerlitz-V bogies, which are naturally found on East-German coaches.
There are quite probably more matches to be found between pictures of (modernized) Halberstaedters and the coaches in the video, but i hope the (random) assortment of matches i have listed should be convinicing...
@@elgonzo7239 I believe you. I just mentioned, that they never really came into my area, so I'm not that familiar with them and about their specific details ;-)
Nice Work Man
It is not the last! We have so many of these in Bulgaria, but maybe you didn't even heard of Bulgaria! Stop ignoring us!!😡😡😡🇧🇬🇧🇬
Why so angry?
to what extent is their railway even functioning? open railwaymap shows me 3 lines
Wagoons from Italy and Sweden, and licomotives from socialist Czechoslovakia,ČKD factory...I think there is no raiway and station in Tiranë,as there is something built at that place and the rail finishes just in some Tiranë suburb...but there is promise to make new track close to the city centre with new station..
..
The broken glass in many wagoons is a "job" of some local kids getting bored throwing some stones just to have fun while train crossing some areas as seen in one tv document
There are lotsa communist-built trains running in Europe and the EU, in countries like Latvia, Poland, Hungary, etc
M62s running in Poland and Hungary and aren’t third world countries like African ones
So depressing to see something that was clearly once a good service so degenerated and unloved. What do you even do when it gets that bad? It's basically just "it's over, start again" at that point.
That’s one sad old sorry train. Rattle and clanker shake rattle n roll.
Does anyone know the names or titles of the Albanian songs being played? Thanks!
jeez bro we have this passenger cars in hungary but its in a good shape
At least they have happy songs!
But German wagons
where are the phone sockets?, surely they have them!.
Power outlets? Good joke...
One question: Who is the male singer in the beginning (and the female in the end)?
why are these trains destroyed? they are really old😨😓
These are in terrible shape. I rode on similar wagons in slovakia a few years ago and they were in decent maintenance.
Fajna stara prawdziwa żelazna kolej. Maksymalna oszczędność kosztów: niemieckie wagony w oryginalnych barwach, brak remontów i napraw, ze nawet podczas przejazdu przez tunel nie włacza się światło. Takie DDR-owskie wagony wciąż kursują po całych Niemczech, ale są w świetnym stanie.
Brilliant love everything of it
Well, Ukraine too has been corrupt for many years. And its official income in not much higher than that of Albania. But the train systems works nice. The lines are maintained, and the rolling stock is not vandalised with graffiti.
W Albanii też tabor nie jest niszczony sztuką ludową (grafitti), gdyż powstaje ono tylko raz. Później już taki wagon kursuje z bazgrołami aż do całkowitego zużycia.
Dramat 🤮
It's all actually political-economical mumbo jumbo, Ukraine's currency is undervalued in first place, second - it's capable to do most of railroad stuff internally, not buying it in foregin prices (which would be expencive), and corruption here really means that noone wants to pay the taxes, but this money still payed for service. And for the last, railroads of Ukraine is crucial for supply since country is long and wide, so i guess a bit more attention would give to trains than in Albania
This is not to bad.
I've seen worse.
At least there is a train.
In serbia they really started to make everything new like for example the soko train that goes 200km/h from belgrade to novi sad
In future it will be also belgrade to bulgaria or subotica to hungary
Është per te pasur keq për vëndin tonë!
Fatkeqesia e realiteti i trisht At'dheut tone.
Translation "It's to be bad for our country! The tragedy of the sad reality of our Homeland."
@@telewag-travel yes, correct!
Don t worry, Bulgarian trains are not much better.
That ride must have almost been free?
It was so low it didn't even register. Less than a pound I think
8:54 Italian UIC - X Standard coaches for national and international. What an horror conditions.
In czechia there are still some cars from East germany in use
In Hungary too. However The ones ended up over there have had a better fate.
🔝🔝🚂🚂💖💖
If it wasn't for the title I'd assumed that this was somewhere in Africa.
There are communist trains in Serbia too, the few refurbished wagons of Tito's "Blue train" as historic gimmicks being driven between Belgrade and Bar.
If they are short on money, why don't they care about their cars?
i like the Music
We use too german Halberstadt car in Hungary!
Bro those are N-wagon from the db😢
y-wagen
And here I was thinking there were no trains in Albania. Hmm.
Same wagons and stations in Bulgaria
trains in Romania are similar to this...
and in Romania it's the same, that's how the trains are
8:52 old italian railway couches 😍🥰
The good old German n-Wagen, so sad what Happening with this goog old piece of Rail history
Bester Zug 👍
some older trains in Romania are pretty much as crappy as this one.
Nicht einmal alte N-wagen, noch so schäbig haben es verdient in so einem land zu enden :(
Tje cara are actually from germany they are old DB cars
What a mess. Serious investment and foreign aid urgently required.
Albania is still struggling and has been through a lot
Given time they will modernise and possibly leap frog as has happened in the Baltic states . I personally found Durres station charming and clean with an excellent buffet/cafe / restaurant. They will no doubt get rid of the Chinese built stuff ( the Sri Lankans have also been landed with Chinese built trains) Coming from a G7 country that has a collapsing rail private train service, we should be ashamed - we still have 3 unelectrifed main lines & no real HSTs north of London. Yes it's Britain, that has chosen to import Siemens inferior trains , and has to its great shame placed orders for new London underground trains with monopolistic Siemens , instead of UK/ French producers Alstrom, Bombardier or Hitachi
It's not the last...Those ex DB West German vars are still in service in Kosovo, Bulgaria, Macedonia
It seems theese railroads seen better times
Hallo from the Czechia! IT Is not that bad, when you comment. That train hauled czech lokomotive T669/CME 3, but waggons interiéry are modernised! Fór the classic communistic trains you must go And visit the Czech republic!! On the lot od regional trains here go classic electric lokomotivě Škoda 163 oř Skoda242 hauled originally waggons Bdmtee with the old communistic site And WITHOUT opening windows!!; Peoples fór those DDR product waggons says Honecker. And on the local connect you vám see old motor cars 810 WITHOUT any rebuild with the Small sites! I think, those two TYPES od the waggons are extra low quality in this Europa!!!
Mě vždycky uchvátí, co někteří joudové dokáží vyplodit za nesmysly. Popros maminku, jestli by nebyla od té lásky a nevrazila ti pár pohlavků.
Looks like an old DB RE from Germany
Because it is.
This looks abandoned
1:03 Intercity 125?!
The colour scheme is, unique.
It's a west German design from the 80s or 90s
You say exterior impressions count, I agree!!! One beatiful communist train defaced by horrendous capitalist smearing of paints...
What is the song at the beginning called?
It's taken from a recording of the Albanian communist TV channel. It's hard to Google TBH, but I did once find the singers name, but can't seem to find it again.
please come to eastern slovakia its a same :D
To sotva...
In Bulgaria we have the same cars
kinda look like germany n-wagons
7:14 isn't that Harry Enfield singing another communist country's anthem? Search for Harry and Paul National Anthem Sketch :p
Almost like in Romania
Its could be misleading if one of these european country buy train from CRRC
9:04 Dilapidated FS Italian coaches
This train is really old
I te okna z dziurami po kulach Armii Czerwonej z 1945 roku! Szok!