Due to the oddity of train timetables and my attempt to make the most of the day, Episode 15 of Exploring the East Coast actually started midway through Episode 16, with me catching a train from East Linton. A short ride four stations back down the East Coast Mainline (ECML) brought me to Wallyford, the first of two stations being covered in this episode and from where I could to the other, Musselburgh.
The Glasgow Subway has been in operation for more than 125 years, since the first service ran on 14th December 1896, and since then there have only been two generations of rolling stock. The Subway’s first generation of rolling stock lasted more than 80 years, from 1896 through to 1977 when the Subway was closed for modernisation, and the current second generation was introduced when the line re-opened in 1980. This second generation of rolling stock isn’t going to make it to 80 years of service though as this year the third generation of rolling stock is starting to be introduced.
I’d arrived in Zurich on a Croatia Airlines flight from Split and had just under four hours in the Swiss airport until the last leg of Snoozing to Split. This final flight was with Helvetic Airways, operating on behalf of Swiss, from Zurich to London City Airport.
Having spent four days on trains, making my way across Europe to Split, I had decided to take a faster and much easier way home, fly! However, being the off season, direct flights from Croatia’s second city to the UK were limited and so the journey home would be two legs, flying via an intermediate point from the journey to Split, Zurich.
Snoozing to Split had been a marathon rail trip across Europe, with 10 countries passed through, five trains, four intermediate cities and four days, however at around 2200 on Monday 8th January, I stepped off the final train of the trip and onto the platform of Split’s main railway station. Having started the day on a sleeper train between Zurich and Zagreb, waking somewhere in western Slovenian, I was ready for bed and so enjoyed a short stroll through the quiet streets to my hotel to end the day.
After just a few hours exploring the Croatian capital, Zagreb, I was back at Zagreb Glavni kolodvor (main station) ready to catch the final train of Snoozing to Split. This journey would take me across the majority of Croatia from the capital in the north to the coastal city of Split in the south. HZPP (Croatian Railways) operates just a couple of trains on this route each day, with my departure named the ‘Marjan’.
Flights & Times 