Zagreb

Our drive from Belgrade to Zagreb and Ljubliana was on the last Saturday in August - a very busy day for holiday traffic. With a right-hand drive car, I simply decided not to try to overtake and just to follow the vehicle in front. Kath saw two fatal accidents during the course of the morning. The next day the car was loaded onto the train in Ljubliana and we travelled overnight to Holland arriving in time for the mid-day boat to England.
1. My first blue Tatra.
2. Local built bogie car.
3. Another Tatra.
4. Finally are of these 4-wheel cars still running in Zagreb odr have the new low floor cars replaced them?
This post marks the end of this blog. Thank you to the various people from Romania, Germany and Hungary who have e-mailed me - I am glad you enjoyed the pictures. We are now planning a trip to Romania in May 2007 flying with Whizz Air and hiring a car. We hope to visit some of these tramways and also to stay in some of the same hotels.

Belgrade Trams

 

To Belgrade

The next morning we drove to Belgrade without any problems at the border with Yugoslavia. We found a central hotel with a large family room very easily. Yugoslavia seemed very rich and prosperous compared with Romania and we could buy beer and ice cream without queueing.
1. Some Belgrade trams carried advertising. This was the first time I had seen a Tatra tram with adverts - for Coca Cola of all things! We didn't see any over advertised western consumer goods in Romania.
2. This is the view from the hotel bedroom window.

Ronat

Our last tram ride in Romania was to Ronat in Timisoara. This route ended with a single track section in an unpaved road and was operated by an elderly 4-wheel tram and control trailer or perhaps it was a close coupled set with one motor in each unit Hungarian style. I can't remember - perhaps someone will add a comment with details of theses cars.
Kai has e-mailed to tell me that these two cars were built in 1928 in the Timisoara workshops. In 1935 they were modified to operate back to back as a coupled pair of cars with new motors from Germany -each car having one motor. They were known as 'gemene' in Timisoara which translates as twins. Kai remembers their distinctive sound and running to the garden fence to watch them pass. Perhaps he saw me standing on the front platform on an August evening in 1982.
Rather surprisingly there was a timetable at Ronat and as I recall it said first tram 5:30 or similar and then every 29 minutes until late evening - not exactly user friendly.
Next morning we set off for the Yogoslavian boarder and Belgrade.

Timisoara