The Railways of Montenegro

The Quest for a Trans-Balkan RailwayText in englisch Few railways were more anachronistic than the legendary Antivari Railway. For fifty years it served little apparent purpose and was always heavily subsidised. Yet this steeply graded and sharply curved mountain railway in Montenegro with its unusual gauge of 750mm lay at the heart of the bitter international rivalries in the Balkans which paved the way to the outbreak of the First World War as the Great Powers struggled with the question of a DanubeAdriatic railway. Only with the opening of the BelgradeBar railway in 1976, one of the great train journeys in Europe today, was the ambition of a trans-Balkan railway finally realised. But was it a railway too late?With more than 310 illustrations and specially prepared maps, this book provides full details on the 600mm, 750mm, 760mm and 1435mm gauge state and industrial railways in Montenegro and their locomotives, past and present. Based largely on original documentary sources and contemporary accounts, it is the most comprehensive account yet published of the struggle to build railways in this small but spectacularly beautiful country