Wildfires Threaten The Belgrade-Bar Railway | Mighty Trains FULL EPISODE | MIGHTY

[00:00:02]Welcome aboard the Balkan Express.

[00:00:06]A breathtaking adventure through Serbia and Montenegro.

[00:00:10]>> This is the ride of a lifetime.

[00:00:13]>> Through postcard mountain views. This is epic. with deadly slopes >> and the threat of fire, the challenged drivers and maintenance crews, but pays off with international eye candy galore. This is the way to see Serbia and Montenegro.

[00:00:48]The Balkan Express runs from the city of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, to Bar in Montenegro on the Adriatic Sea. The line will cross the majestic Daeneric Alps and travel through land that was torn by a brutal civil war just decades ago.

[00:01:06]But this train has been a constant, taking people through difficult terrain and times to enjoy a day at the beach.

[00:01:17]It's a few minutes after 8:00 in Belgrade, Serbia.

[00:01:29]>> An inspector is examining the train before departure.

[00:01:34]He tests the wheels with a hammer.

[00:01:47]>> All of the wheels ring clear.

[00:01:50]Driver Sasha Ranchic gets in place to monitor the critical brake tests.

[00:02:10]foreign.

[00:02:29]The ride starts at historic Top Cheater Station. It was built in the early 1930s, and the passenger hall was once a waiting room for the king of Yugoslavia's VIP guests.

[00:02:42]It's a little old-fashioned, but so is the price. You can get a one-way ticket for $35.

[00:02:49]You actually can't get a ticket for this train online. You have to show up here in person at the ticket counter to grab one. And it's not an expensive journey.

[00:02:57]This is a really budget friendly trip, which is great. The train's here now.

[00:03:01]It's about to roll. I'm going to jump on.

[00:03:09]>> Most of the country has automatic switches, but at Top Cheater Station, it's still done manually.

[00:03:17]It's an old school method, but it sends the train on the right path.

[00:03:28]So, this is not a luxury train, but it's actually quite nice. bare bones, but it does the job. And this is my cabin right here.

[00:03:36]This is great.

[00:03:38]>> Our driver's been on this route for 30 years, and he's going to need all of his experience.

[00:03:55]Day one of the trip takes us on an almost 300 kometer leg through the mountains where I'll stop at Briti and ride the remarkable figure 8 tracks of the Chargon 8 train. We'll finish in Bellier where I'll stop for the night.

[00:04:11]Day two is a mere 157 kilometers traveling over the stunning Malaria Bridge, the highest bridge in Europe, to get to Bar Montenegro on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. But it's not just a trip across the terrain. We go up through the Deneric Alps almost 800 m tall on day one and topping a,000 m on day two.

[00:04:39]The conductor, Milos Bosanovich, starts checking and selling tickets.

[00:04:55]Fore! Foreign! Foreign!

[00:05:16]He manages to enjoy the trip though.

[00:05:21]>> To see that beauty, we need a powerful locomotive. The first leg is employing an Electropouter SV441, a reliable workhorse that hauls heavy freight or passenger trains uphill. It's 15.47 m long, 4.65 high, and 3.1 wide.

[00:05:41]It weighs in at a sturdy 80 tons.

[00:05:46]It's not new, and driving it requires a lot of TLC.

[00:06:17]So, right now we're leaving Belgrade.

[00:06:18]It's It's a very big city, so it'll take us a while to get out of it. And right now, you can see all their graffiti on the train cars that we're passing.

[00:06:25]That's really common here.

[00:06:41]The cleaning team tackles the cars once or twice a month, but it's a tough job.

[00:07:13]I've got company on the trip. Sloban Rosich has worked on the railway since 1992. He's been everything from a traffic engineer to the director of railways. So, what makes this line and this journey so special? Ah the first of all landscape this line crossed five big mountain not one five big mountain from Belgar to bar and this was really engineering challenge to build. How would you describe the current state of the tracks on on this line?

[00:07:42]>> This part of line is completely refurbished. Everything is new and naturally the speed is uh about 100 km per hour.

[00:07:50]>> Right now almost 77 km at the start of the line are covered by the new tracks.

[00:07:56]They cost $80 million to install, which explains why there aren't more of them.

[00:08:18]That won't last. After this stretch, we'll be on tracks that are older and worse for wear. The train will need to slow down, making this a much longer trip than it used to be. When the line opened, the journey took 7 hours. Now it takes 12.

[00:08:38]This smooth ride is about to change.

[00:08:42]It's about to get bigger, rougher, and harder.

[00:09:00]We're a short way out of Belgrade in Serbia on the way to the beach in Bar Montenegro. Look at this beautiful open area. It's very different than what Belgrade looked like just a little while ago. You can see mountains in the background as well. Soon we're going to be up very close beside them. The Valvo Mountains are where things start to get big and not just the landscape. Some of the tallest people in the world live in the Daeneric Alps.

[00:09:27]>> Double intro. Oh, hello.

[00:09:28]>> Hello.

[00:09:28]>> Oh, you speak English?

[00:09:29]>> Yeah, I speak English. Yeah.

[00:09:30]>> Oh, cool. Are you Are you from Serbia?

[00:09:33]>> No, I'm actually from Montenegro. I went to Serbia for a vacation. So, >> I did hear that in this area some of the tallest people in the world come from here.

[00:09:41]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. There. We actually have the world's second tallest government, I think.

[00:09:45]>> Really?

[00:09:45]>> Which is like the average height is like 66 of like of the three people in the government. No.

[00:09:50]>> And you're from here, too, right? So, >> turns out the uh the facts are correct.

[00:09:56]>> I'm not from this area.

[00:09:59]>> The heights outside the train demand more from our locomotive.

[00:10:15]This is an electric locomotive. It draws power from wires through panagramraphs which sit on top of the train to keep the train running. They're inspected regularly.

[00:10:40]This coating doesn't need to be replaced. So, inspectors move from the top of the train to the bottom to see if the brakes are up to snuff.

[00:11:15]After a thorough check, this locomotive goes back to work, while our locomotive handles the hills easily.

[00:11:28]We're now past the crest of Danovachki, the first big climb of the trip around 500 m up.

[00:11:46]Things can get dangerous. Sasha has to be on top of his game.

[00:11:55]>> He taps a dead man's brake with his foot every 20 seconds to show he's alert. If he doesn't, an alarm goes off. If he doesn't respond to that, in 5 seconds, the train stops. As for the real break, Sasha can't overdo it.

[00:12:28]We're pulling into station has a control center monitoring ing the tracks from just outside of Bgrade to the Montenegro border. This place may look dated, but it gets the job done.

[00:13:01]Dispatchers and two operators control traffic passing through 34 stations.

[00:13:06]They monitor about 30 to 40 trains at a time. Some electronics help keep track of all the traffic. They're called axle counters.

[00:13:24]As the train leaves the station, it goes past one sensor, then another. By calculating the time it took to cross between the two sensors, the direction and speed of the train can be determined. When the train comes to the next station, it crosses two more sensors. This tells the dispatchers that the train is no longer on that stretch of track. The monitoring keeps the trains from colliding.

[00:13:50]We're off to our next stop, Ujits, a city of about 64,000.

[00:13:55]It used to be named after Yseph Braz Tito, the socialist leader who pushed to have the railway built.

[00:14:03]Tito took the first ride on the Belgrade Tibar line in his iconic blue train, the lap of luxury. Dignitaries like presidents and royalty would use the train when they visited Yugoslavia. If they chose to entertain, they were treated to a grand dining area with china cups. If they wanted time alone, there was a private bath and even their own office space. You can tour the train if you're in Bgrade. And if your pockets are deep enough, you can charter a ride.

[00:14:35]As for our train, we're heading for a transition.

[00:14:56]The conductors have just a few moments to exchange vital information before the train pulls out.

[00:15:12]Our new driver is VTO Gazditch.

[00:15:25]>> He's seen it all.

[00:15:35]>> We're now ascending the Zlatibore mountain chain where we'll go almost 800 m above sea level.

[00:15:42]The biggest threat is rock slides, which can derail a speeding train. Landslides stop the line four or five times a year.

[00:15:52]Several kilometers down the line, a crew is working hard to prevent that.

[00:16:00]Our train goes through a section of the Deneric Alps that's made of carst, a soft limestone that can be worn by water over millions of years. This creates loose rock and huge caverns. Porest rock is a difficult place to build a railway.

[00:16:24]This is a low tech but effective test to see if the rock face is shifting.

[00:16:35]Broken glass means that the wall needs to be reinforced.

[00:16:46]The hillside is covered in nets to catch falling debris. Loose rocks are also identified and dealt with >> to prevent a landslide. It's muscle against mountains.

[00:17:09]When a rock looks like it could fall, they knock it down, then clean it up.

[00:17:15]This is a neverending job in the Daeneric Alps.

[00:17:24]We're still climbing the Zlativore mountain range. This is the dramatic landscape that I was really, really excited to see. You've got some incredible mountains and they stretch back really far, but this scenic landscape meant that it was really difficult to lay this railway track in the first place. Building a railway is never easy, but it's especially hard in steep mountains. We're about to see a different train line that overcame a giant climb in a very clever way.

[00:17:53]>> I can't even imagine how difficult it would have been to build this railway.

[00:17:59]We're high in the Daeneric Alps on the way from Belgrade in Serbia to Bar in Montenegro. And I'm about to leave the train to see one of the greatest sites on the trip.

[00:18:11]This is Berneshi station and I'm jumping off here because it's the closest station to the famous Chargon 8 tourist train. I'm going to ride it right now.

[00:18:20]I catch the train at Mochraora which means wet mountain. The village is on the slopes of three mountains which house three rivers. We're ascending Mount Sharon. No easy feat.

[00:18:39]To get to the station at the top of the mountain, the train needs to climb 300 m. Going straight up would be impossible. It's too steep for a train.

[00:18:49]So instead, the tracks take a figure 8 route, gradually snaking around and up the slopes. The distance between the two stations is just 3.5 km. But rail workers had to lay 15 kilometers of track.

[00:19:05]>> Yes. To solve altitude and height difference between uh first station and the last station. And it was the only possible solution that time when they were building this line.

[00:19:18]>> The line was started in 1921 and finished in 1925.

[00:19:23]To get over the valley and through the hills, engineers built 10 bridges and 22 tunnels.

[00:19:31]We've just come out of a tunnel and as with every part of this journey, tunnels are a big factor here. If you're going to build railway tracks through mountains like this, you're going to have to bore a lot of tunnels.

[00:19:43]Originally, the line was built to join a rail line here with one in Austria, Hungary. Now, it's mainly used for tourists to enjoy the stunning views.

[00:19:54]>> Uh, every year we have more than 80,000 people in this train. The trip takes you up to the top of Chargon Mountain where riders can stop at the Love Rock.

[00:20:22]Well, I don't know about all that, but I've loved my trip on the Chargon 8.

[00:20:30]Don't need some okra.

[00:20:32]>> Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

[00:20:38]>> Now it's back to the main train where we're approaching one of the great landmarks of the trip. A tunnel that opened in 1970 and took 9 years to build.

[00:20:54]We say kilometers that I took.

[00:20:58]>> You can see that little pinhole of light way down at the end. That's the entrance. And it's the longest tunnel in all of Serbia. And it was dug through limestone rock, which meant the construction on it was actually relatively easy as far as tunnels go.

[00:21:11]But in terms of maintenance, that soft rock can be really, really problematic.

[00:21:19]This porous rock is not the sturdiest surface to build on or through. That's why the tunnel is checked daily.

[00:21:38]Alexandra Priovich inspects the tunnels when there are problems.

[00:21:56]Water from rivers above is leaking through the cracks, but the cracks themselves could be a sign of bigger problems.

[00:22:16]What they've found isn't enough to shut down the tunnel, but they'll consider sealing the cracks and adding more drainage pipes to get rid of the water.

[00:22:27]On the train, we're through the tunnel and getting ready to leave the country.

[00:22:33]So most of this journey goes through Serbia and Montenegro, but for a very short time. Right now, we're actually in Bosnia, Herzuggavveniah. We won't be here for long, though. It's just a a short jaunt into another country.

[00:22:46]Construction on the line started in 1952 and was finished in 1976.

[00:22:52]Until 1989, it was part of the country of Yugoslavia.

[00:22:57]Then, a bloody civil war tore the country apart. Over the next two decades, the region's instability was reflected in the borders. From the start of the war until 2008, boundaries shifted with unusual frequency. Despite the turmoil, the train kept running, carrying as many as 400 people on a 12-hour trip across a once divided land.

[00:23:25]At least one passenger thinks the train is part of the post-war healing.

[00:23:30]So this train travels through three different countries and and obviously this area has had a fair bit of war and conflict over the years. So I mean do you feel like it brings people from the different countries together?

[00:23:40]>> Yes, surely because it it's a long trip.

[00:23:44]It's uh much hours and we just need to talk here and to be kind and share some food stories and this smooth and slow style. It's like our culture. It's it's better. Nicola's wish for slow and steady pays off on this part of the line. We're cruising alongside a stunning 200 kometer ribbon through the landscape. So right now you can see through the trees here we're tracking the limb river and we're going to be going alongside it for quite a while, about an hour. And the river gets that gorgeous emerald green hue from the limestone that it cuts through.

[00:24:22]We also enjoy majestic cliff faces and an old monastery.

[00:24:29]Next up, the Montenegro border where the train is searched.

[00:24:41]Inspectors look for smuggled goods like cigarettes, even stowaways.

[00:24:54]and documents are verified with special ultraviolet readers.

[00:25:02]>> Thank you.

[00:25:07]>> Well, we made it to Montenegro and I'll be staying here for the night. Our train is going to continue all the way to bar, but it'll be dark and I want to see the sights of Montenegro during the day. So, I'll jump on the next train tomorrow morning.

[00:25:20]I'll want a good night's rest because tomorrow we head to the most spectacular site on the line, the Maleriea Bridge.

[00:25:30]>> A lot of things go through your mind.

[00:25:33]>> The sun's not up yet at Viello Polier station on the Serbian and Montenegrron border. Since we're in a new country, we get a new locomotive, one better suited to the huge mountains ahead. The Electropout ZCG series 461 has six axles. They'll help on the many curves ahead by making more contact with the rails than a four axle locomotive. It's another electric train, but this one has six traction engines, the equivalent power of about seven NASCAR racers.

[00:26:06]First, it needs to be hooked up.

[00:26:18]Then the brakes are checked. On the steep hills ahead, good brakes are a matter of life and death.

[00:26:26]All the brakes are good to go.

[00:26:29]>> For the toughest stretch on the line, there are always two drivers. veteran Leova Milivan >> and 24y old Nicola Povich who will be the secondary driver.

[00:26:56]Day two of our trip heads into a thick dawn.

[00:26:59]>> Yeah, it's extremely hard to see now because all of the fog and stuff.

[00:27:04]>> Nicl has been driving for 3 years. He's been paired with a driver who has 8 years of experience.

[00:27:19]We've also got a new conductor, Dushko Sardanovich, and he's offered to show me a sleeper car.

[00:27:25]>> Ah, this is it.

[00:27:26]>> That is safety for passenger.

[00:27:28]>> Okay. Right.

[00:27:29]>> Don't don't put down.

[00:27:31]>> And you've got six bunks in here.

[00:27:33]>> Yes, that is from six passengers.

[00:27:38]We've got a quick stop so Nicola can take control. We're near the top of the Beella Shitska mountain range. The local dispatcher hands the drivers permission to advance through the next red light.

[00:27:52]That signal isn't working.

[00:27:54]>> Okay.

[00:27:55]Basically, it's the direction that tells us the signal is not working. So, we can go through red.

[00:28:04]The written permission gets the drivers on their way, but this problem may continue.

[00:28:10]We've got a few more tunnels and bridges to clear before coming to the pride of the line.

[00:28:17]Right now, we're in a short tunnel and where we come out of the tunnel, there's a bridge on Malara. It's an architectural wonder here. They call it >> the Malaria Bridge is the highest railway bridge in all of Europe.

[00:28:34]Crossing over it is one of the highlights of this journey. We're on it right now.

[00:28:39]Just look at that. It's 201 m high. When it was finished in 1973, it was the highest railway bridge in the world.

[00:28:49]It's also the longest on the line at 498.8 8 m.

[00:28:54]>> Yeah, the view here is really incredible.

[00:28:57]Some get even frightened when they are here.

[00:29:00]>> The bridge took 4 years to build. 250 construction workers labored around the clock. Because the foundation rock is made of soft limestone, support beams had to be driven extra deep. Cranes were put inside the pillars. They hauled material up and poured concrete down to build up the supports. The tallest is almost 140 m, a little longer than an international soccer pitch.

[00:29:32]It's basically the symbol of our rail.

[00:29:34]This bridge right here.

[00:29:40]>> So, we went over the bridge through a tunnel and now look at this. We've looped back and we've got that incredible view. Check it out.

[00:29:48]The bridge is crucial to the line, so it's monitored constantly.

[00:30:01]>> Radichevich Radco is on the track as soon as the train has gone by. Official railway bridgeguards are here every day.

[00:30:17]Today, Vera Vuyovich's team is giving the track an additional examination.

[00:30:27]First up, making sure the tracks are straight.

[00:30:45]If the tracks shift enough, it can derail the train, sending it plunging into the valley.

[00:31:00]When construction was finished, high winds kept trains from crossing. A strong enough gust could push them over the edge. So, this screen was built to block the wind and allow the trains to keep running.

[00:31:19]Reddich also finds some damage caused by the trains.

[00:31:31]The burnt wood looks bad and will be replaced, but it isn't a threat to the trains. The inspection finishes just in time.

[00:31:44]>> We're heading to the most dangerous stretch of the line when the train comes to an unexpected stop.

[00:31:51]The entrance signals on both sides don't work. The >> Deneric Alps in Montenegro, the highest point on our trip.

[00:31:59]>> What a view.

[00:32:02]>> Approaching a steep decline when our driver stops the train.

[00:32:06]>> We have to stop here because it's red.

[00:32:09]Entrance signals on both sides don't work.

[00:32:12]>> The faulty lights continue to be a problem. Leova needs to call dispatchers from a hard line. He's going to tell him all the details if we need to make a stop on the station or if we are waiting for something like there's another train coming in to get direction. So basically now he said we can go through.

[00:32:41]We're on our way to Bioce. This stretch has a steep downhill slope that goes through a tunnel emerging on a cliff face. It's where the worst accident in the history of the Belgrade Tibar line took place.

[00:32:56]On January 23rd, 2006, a train was descending a steep slope when the brakes failed. The train went off the rails and into a valley. Around 200 people were injured and 47 people died.

[00:33:13]My new friend's aunt was on the train that tragic day.

[00:33:18]>> She luckily survived, but many people died there. And it was a horror show.

[00:33:23]She told me the train hit the tunnel from the inside and in one moment on the middle of the road, they jump from the rails and many people die there. So this roads are beautiful and dangerous in the same time.

[00:33:38]>> This is where our drivers will rely on the brakes.

[00:33:42]On this train, they're powered by air and by electricity.

[00:33:47]>> Okay, so right now I'm going to use the electronamic brake on the fall. It can stop working if you overheat it. Depends on the amount of electricity you use, of course.

[00:33:56]>> The air brakes on all the carriages chip in too. Nicola works the brakes carefully, making sure the train doesn't go faster than 60 kmh.

[00:34:10]This is the place of the tragedy that happened here couple years ago.

[00:34:17]He flew right here on the train. His compressor stopped working. So he just went downhill without any brakes and all.

[00:34:25]Yeah, it always gets me when I get drive through here. Always think of that. What happened? My teacher in elementary school, her daughter died in that accident.

[00:34:37]I mean, that's what keeps me motivated to be professional in my work.

[00:34:44]>> Nicholas professionalism is noticed by his more experienced colleagues.

[00:34:57]We're past Theoce and heading toward Podgarita on our trip to the beach at bar. The whole trip has been gorgeous and it stirs up memories for our conductor.

[00:35:07]>> It's a beautiful look. I I fishing in this river. The railway from Belia to bar is one of 10 top in the world.

[00:35:17]>> Most scenic.

[00:35:18]>> Yes. Most most beautiful. Do you like Teddy?

[00:35:21]>> I I think this is so beautiful. I've never been to Montenegro before and I'm I'm really blown away by the landscape.

[00:35:27]I I knew it would be big mountains and very pretty. I didn't know it would look like this. This is epic.

[00:35:34]>> It's a vulnerable beauty, though. From the spring to the fall, the dry brush is prone to wildfires.

[00:35:40]>> I've seen many fires. I've seen from small to really, really big one. Like, it's really unbelievable. They're just breaking out.

[00:35:51]>> When fires break out, there's a team ready to roll.

[00:36:11]sister.

[00:36:28]There have been almost 70 wildfires a year in Montenegro for the last 15 years. This crew puts out as many as 40 fires a year.

[00:36:57]The fire is put out pretty quickly.

[00:36:59]After all, this was just a training exercise.

[00:37:07]Back on the train, our young driver is facing his own challenges.

[00:37:11]>> There's a lot of curse here. That's why the speed limit is 30 because it's so unpredictable. You see all these rocky cliffs here and all.

[00:37:20]>> Nicola has to use the brakes a lot here.

[00:37:23]So much so that the wheels can wear out three times faster on this line than anywhere else in Europe.

[00:37:30]>> So the train weights a lot, especially this train. There's a lot of I mean metal on metal. It damages the wheels a lot.

[00:37:43]>> Okay.

[00:37:50]The wheels are serviced at the end of each month.

[00:38:03]and magnets measure the diameter of the wheels.

[00:38:07]Then they're shaved to a profile that fits the tracks perfectly.

[00:38:16]>> The repairs take between two and 6 hours for each wheel, depending on how badly they're worn. Then the trains go back into service.

[00:38:27]Our train is now through the most difficult part of the journey.

[00:38:34]Now I'll get the chance to check out that tough carse topography up close.

[00:38:39]We've arrived in Paggarita. This is the capital of Montenegro. This country has over 10,000 caves. Right now I'm headed to explore one of the biggest.

[00:38:55]>> Hi there. How are you? I'm Teddy.

[00:38:57]>> Hi. Welcome to Li Cave.

[00:38:58]>> Thank you very much.

[00:39:01]This is amazing. So this is all limestone, right?

[00:39:04]>> Exactly. Yeah. This is a limestone cave.

[00:39:06]So it was carved by river Tatina which is not active anymore in the form flowing through the cave but it's uh we still have channels of this river below us.

[00:39:16]>> So I mean this is the topography now the car topography that we saw from above and now we're seeing it from the inside from the underside.

[00:39:24]>> How deep does this cave go? 2.5 kilometers of holes, passageways that are explored. However, actually nobody knows how deep the cave is.

[00:39:33]>> Wow. These are these are awesome. So the leg tites come from the tops, the leg mites from the bottom, right?

[00:39:38]>> Exactly. And these are called organs because they resemble musical instrument, but also the acoustics is strongest here.

[00:39:44]>> Right.

[00:39:46]>> This is amazing. What is this called?

[00:39:48]>> This is called a tongue. It's actually also a calcium carbonate formation. Uh what we get here the water brings calcium carbonate and other minerals and it deposits them over the limestone rock. And this is how we get all of these wonderful formations. Stalctite stagite including this one. Welcome to the hall of the grail. So we are in another hole in Lipa Cave.

[00:40:09]>> Yeah.

[00:40:10]>> And this is the biggest stallagmite of of Lipa Cave also.

[00:40:13]>> Wow. This is this is incredible. I've never seen anything like this.

[00:40:17]>> Wow. I could spend all day in here, but I don't want to miss the train.

[00:40:24]Teddy, please go in the train. We must go.

[00:40:27]>> That was really, really cool. And now we're getting back on for the last part of our trip. All right. Thanks, Kishka.

[00:40:32]>> We are go.

[00:40:42]We're heading to another breathtaking landmark.

[00:40:50]This is Lake Scodar. It's the largest lake in all of southern Europe and it straddles Montenegro and Albania. And this area is a haven for wildlife. There are several species of fish here that are found nowhere else on the planet.

[00:41:04]And as you can see, it's stunning.

[00:41:07]We've seen some gorgeous sights so far, but we're not done yet. The longest tunnel on the line is coming up and we're heading for the historic city of Bar and the beach.

[00:41:20]We're cruising through the mountains of Montenegro on our way to Bar. And I do mean through.

[00:41:27]Just ahead is the longest tunnel on our trip, the 6.2 km Sena tunnel.

[00:41:41]Nicola puts on sunglasses so his eyes can adjust to the darkness. The tunnel was completed in 1959 and took 7 years to build. It was dug from both sides which met in the middle. The rock on which the railway is built is notoriously unreliable, so it's constantly monitored.

[00:42:12]Right now they're drilling for rock samples.

[00:42:18]>> This material is called flesh.

[00:42:20]>> Basically we have inter layers of good and bad rock.

[00:42:24]>> The core samples show the different layers.

[00:42:28]>> In my left hand is seal stone and it can be very degradated. In my right hand, I'm holding a sandstone. Sand stone is mostly good base rock.

[00:42:43]>> The layers of solid rock can slide off the layers of degraded rock, especially on slopes like these. This can cause landslides which can spill onto the tracks.

[00:42:55]>> It's not ideal for building railway track on this sort of material. When it comes in water, it can easily slip.

[00:43:05]The shifting rock can deform the track so much that it can derail a train. By identifying where the slip zones are, they'll know what track to replace and what cliff faces to reinforce.

[00:43:21]Thanks to the efforts all across the line, we've made it to bar.

[00:43:28]So, we've reached the coast of the Adriatic Sea. There it is. That's the payoff after the grueling climb through the mountains. This area gets around 270 days of sunshine per year, and it is beautiful.

[00:43:41]This transportation hub for trains and fairies is loaded with historic charm.

[00:43:46]And of course, there's the beach.

[00:43:50]The journey is appreciated by the drivers. As a kid, I could never imagine myself being on a train, to be honest.

[00:43:56]But now, I doubt you can take me off a train.

[00:44:10]So, how did that go today?

[00:44:12]>> Yeah, went awesome. Really, really was an adventure. It was my pleasure to be here.

[00:44:19]>> Okay.

[00:44:21]>> He did an awesome job, too.

[00:44:24]>> Huska, thank you so much. It's very nice trips and very nice to meet you and I hope you coming back again.

[00:44:31]>> I would love to come back.

[00:44:32]>> You are a very good passenger.

[00:44:35]>> Thank you very much. Bye. It was a great trip. That was an incredible journey.

[00:44:39]Spectacular views of the generic Alps from a train that tackles near impossible landscapes. But most of all, I was struck by the fact that this train unites two countries and brings the people of this region together.

[00:44:53]Heat.

[00:45:09]Heat.