Right then.
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@Infoseepage Right. But Albania is just one level more weird and more chaotic than North Macedonia
@jon There is a pretty high degree of basic infrastructure failure in much of the Balkans. My apartment in Skopje overlooks a big construction pit that has been rapidly turned into a place for people to heave their household trash, since municipal trash collection barely seems to exist here.
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@jon There is a pretty high degree of basic infrastructure failure in much of the Balkans. My apartment in Skopje overlooks a big construction pit that has been rapidly turned into a place for people to heave their household trash, since municipal trash collection barely seems to exist here.
@jon The one that cracks me up though is Novi Sad in Serbia. Second biggest city. They've got a bridge over the Danube and there is like 2 blocks worth of pedestrian sidewalk extending out from it and then it just ends and you're left to walk several miles to the train station in Petrovaradin tromping through high grass on a completely unimproved narrow road shoulder. And this is because the station in Novi Sad is closed because a chunk of it collapsed and killed a bunch of people.
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@jon The one that cracks me up though is Novi Sad in Serbia. Second biggest city. They've got a bridge over the Danube and there is like 2 blocks worth of pedestrian sidewalk extending out from it and then it just ends and you're left to walk several miles to the train station in Petrovaradin tromping through high grass on a completely unimproved narrow road shoulder. And this is because the station in Novi Sad is closed because a chunk of it collapsed and killed a bunch of people.
@Infoseepage I didn't actually (yet!) try to walk to Petrovaradin. I only passed through in the train. But this does not surprise me, sadly.
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Cows grazing in front of half completed tower blocks
Tirana
@jon did you teleport to India by chance?
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How have they resolved the issue on the road to Kamez, I wondered
It’d need a level crossing on a dual carriageway
Ah. They haven’t.
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@jon With a perfectly placed concrete barrier, I see!
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@jon With a perfectly placed concrete barrier, I see!
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Overall I have the impression that Albania is building this railway so as they can show to the EU and other international partners that they are "modern" and a token effort is being made against road congestion
It's rather similar to their bike lanes. "Look we have bike lanes!"
No one can reasonably use the bike lanes, and not many will be able to use the train, but that's not the point
The point is to have these things, for credibility
@jon Potemkin infrastructure
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@jon did you teleport to India by chance?
@ajinkyapdahale @jon bc of the cows? India has way better train service I suppose. I mean over 90% electrification rate is quite something
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@Infoseepage I didn't actually (yet!) try to walk to Petrovaradin. I only passed through in the train. But this does not surprise me, sadly.
@jon It's not a great walk in from the Petrovaradin train station to Novi Sad across either of the Danube bridges. I did it once via each bridge coming and going. Takes you through some questionable neighborhoods with lots of very heavy gang graffiti. Would have taken a taxi on the inbound journey, but the driver wanted 20 bucks for the about 4 km journey. Highway robbery.
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@jon It's not a great walk in from the Petrovaradin train station to Novi Sad across either of the Danube bridges. I did it once via each bridge coming and going. Takes you through some questionable neighborhoods with lots of very heavy gang graffiti. Would have taken a taxi on the inbound journey, but the driver wanted 20 bucks for the about 4 km journey. Highway robbery.
@jon Would have taken a taxi from town back to the train station on the day I left, but couldn't seem to flag one down and so just gave up and hoofed it. Carrying a 75l pack frame and a separate reinforced grocery bag for food. Not fun to be walking that far in the hot sun on bad pavement and sometimes just flat out dirt.
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@pvdrijst I have been here in 2019, 2024 and now, and the level of traffic has always been hellish. Cycling in the north in 2024 - to the border with Montenegro - was fine in comparison!
@jon I cycles from Macedonia (sorry Greece) along the coast to Montenegro, and traffic never was a problem even in Dürres.
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Overall I have the impression that Albania is building this railway so as they can show to the EU and other international partners that they are "modern" and a token effort is being made against road congestion
It's rather similar to their bike lanes. "Look we have bike lanes!"
No one can reasonably use the bike lanes, and not many will be able to use the train, but that's not the point
The point is to have these things, for credibility
College of Europe Tirana
Obviously nowhere at all to park a bike
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College of Europe Tirana
Obviously nowhere at all to park a bike
️@jon This selfie of yours is giving me a little flashback, thanks for that! 🤩 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfihDS0OCwg
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College of Europe Tirana
Obviously nowhere at all to park a bike
️I decided I needed some Europa
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I decided I needed some Europa
The problem with these Albanian railway plans: nothing being built here is qualitatively going to be good enough to get people out of cars
Beograd - Novi Sad, Tallinn - Tartu, even Vilnius - Kaunas all ARE
These Albanian plans are only good enough to rival buses
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The problem with these Albanian railway plans: nothing being built here is qualitatively going to be good enough to get people out of cars
Beograd - Novi Sad, Tallinn - Tartu, even Vilnius - Kaunas all ARE
These Albanian plans are only good enough to rival buses
Parking, Albanian style
Most of the cars parked in this street are for sale (labels in windows)
So that means everyone double parks, alongside the for sale cars
️And then goes to the cafe
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The problem with these Albanian railway plans: nothing being built here is qualitatively going to be good enough to get people out of cars
Beograd - Novi Sad, Tallinn - Tartu, even Vilnius - Kaunas all ARE
These Albanian plans are only good enough to rival buses
@jon I took the train a lot during my 3 months in Serbia and it's a interesting experience, with most actual stations derelict and offering no services. I think there is only a handful of the stations that I visited where the towns took any pride in their old station and kept them freshly plastered and painted. Throughout from Belgrade up to Novi Sad is one of the few routes that are up to what I consider European standards.
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@jon I took the train a lot during my 3 months in Serbia and it's a interesting experience, with most actual stations derelict and offering no services. I think there is only a handful of the stations that I visited where the towns took any pride in their old station and kept them freshly plastered and painted. Throughout from Belgrade up to Novi Sad is one of the few routes that are up to what I consider European standards.
@jon All that said, I took the train a lot because I prefer the ride quality, seating and ability to maintain positive eyes on my bags the whole time. Serbian buses can be quite bad and I was on a couple routes where people were left to stand in the aisles of coach buses. I think the longest ride I took was from Belgrade to Niš, which took a little over 6 hours. It's the opposite of an express, and stops briefly at every little village platform along the whole route.
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@jon All that said, I took the train a lot because I prefer the ride quality, seating and ability to maintain positive eyes on my bags the whole time. Serbian buses can be quite bad and I was on a couple routes where people were left to stand in the aisles of coach buses. I think the longest ride I took was from Belgrade to Niš, which took a little over 6 hours. It's the opposite of an express, and stops briefly at every little village platform along the whole route.
@jon Another major issue with most Serbian rail routes, is that the rail lines are not in protected corridors and the the automated crossing guards where they exist cannot be counted upon, so the trains have to keep to a relatively low speed in order to be able to slow down and blare their horns at every crossing. They're also running much bigger trains than they actually need compared to the number of passengers I typically saw.
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@jon Another major issue with most Serbian rail routes, is that the rail lines are not in protected corridors and the the automated crossing guards where they exist cannot be counted upon, so the trains have to keep to a relatively low speed in order to be able to slow down and blare their horns at every crossing. They're also running much bigger trains than they actually need compared to the number of passengers I typically saw.
@jon Most of the routes would probably be much better serviced by the sorts of single car trains that are common on a lot of rural French routes. They stop quickly. They accelerate quickly and they're much cheaper to operate than the sorts of big trains I saw in Serbia.
