Aventuras Entresierras shows this train that is preserved in Predgrađe
35 years ago a war broke out in the Balkan Peninsula that ended with the disappearance of the former Yugoslavia.
The Red Fićo: the story behind a curious monument with a 600 defeating a tank
The ruins of the old Yugoslav radar station at Gola Plješevica, Croatia
The war began in the spring of 1991 when Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia, following the collapse of the communist dictatorship founded by Josip Broz Tito. In Slovenia, the war lasted ten days, ending on July 6, 1991, but in Croatia, the conflict escalated into a civil war, in which the Croatian Army fought against the Yugoslav Army and also against the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina, an ephemeral state without international recognition founded within current Croatian territory, with territories in its far east and in the areas closest to Bosnia.
That was a bloody war, the worst to occur in Europe at that time since the Second World War. During that conflict, the Croatian Army decided to build an armored train. As I explained here four years ago, the Croatian national railway Hrvatske Željeznice and the Brodosplit Shipyard in Split converted two wagons and an EMD G26 diesel-electric locomotive into an armored train in 1991, a project undertaken hastily and without blueprints as a response to the Krajina Express, an armored train built by the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and operational between 1991 and 1995. Officially unveiled on January 31, 1992, the Split armored train never entered service due to its excessive weight.
Yesterday, the always interesting channel Aventuras Entresierras (which I highly recommend you subscribe to) published a video recorded in the Croatian city of Split showing that armored train, which has been located for many years in the Predgrađe railway depot, in a state of some neglect (the video is in Spanish but has an English audio track, you can activate it in the player):
You can see some screenshots from this video here (it shows the interior of the train). Here we can see one of the train’s two cars. It was built using UIC Class G freight cars as a base. As you can see in the video, despite being freight cars, they were equipped with toilets.
The locomotive is located in the center of the train, a curious placement likely due to the need to protect it with the two armored cars. The locomotive used for this train, the EMD G26, was an American model manufactured by General Motors and produced under license in Yugoslavia between 1972 and 1984 at the Đuro Đaković factory in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, with the local designation JŽ 664. However, the train’s locomotive, 2062-045, was built in Canada in 1973 and entered service with Yugoslav Railways in August of that year, according to Andrew Grantham.
One of the two turrets of the armored train. There was one at each end of the train. They are currently disarmed, but originally each one carried a 12.7 mm Browning M2 heavy machine gun.
