Croatian Railways Class 2044

The Entrance of a Legend: Class 2044 on a Croatian Summer Day ☀️

July 2009 on a stubbornly hot afternoon between Turčin and Sveti Ilija, a stretch of Croatian track that seems to exist mostly to test patience and the endurance of shade trees 🌳.

It was there that the entrance of the locomotive Hrvatske Željeznice class 2044 with a local train to Zagreb turned a routine ride into a small theater. The engine rolled into view first, a long, weathered silhouette with a grin of steel and a whiff of diesel that dared you to complain about the heat.

The Workhorse of Croatian Railways 🚂

The class 2044 is not a sleek sports car. It is a workhorse with a stubborn heart, built to haul and to last, a diesel-electric totem that remembers a time when trains were the primary way to move a nation from the fields to the capital. The driver, already with a mug of coffee in hand ☕, checked the controls as if greeting an old friend. The air brakes hissed in a theatrical sigh and a chorus of couplers clicked awake like distant castanets.

As the train assembled, the platform crowd shifted, half distracted by the phone screens 📱 and the other half by the metal sculpture coming to life. The locomotive took its place at the front of the local, its headlights bright as a lighthouse on a foggy morning 💡, the kind of light that makes even the pigeons pause mid flutter. The engine coughed once more, shook off a tiny cloud of dust, and settled into a rhythm that felt more like a heartbeat than a machine.

The Scenic Route to Zagreb 🌾

The route between Turčin and Sveti Ilija is a quiet one, the kind of slice of Croatia that travellers seldom photograph but always remember 📸. On either side, fields lay in uniform green and gold, with hedges that look like they were trimmed by a meticulous grandmother and trees that lean in as though listening for the next story from the rails. A church spire peeks over a hill in the distance ⛪, and somewhere a dog barks at the passing wind. The local train to Zagreb, now in the lead, plods forward with a steady, unhurried confidence that only trains with a lifetime of miles can muster.

Inside the Carriage 🎫

Inside the car, the passengers settle into the ritual: a sigh of relief from the sun-seared day, the soft clink of a newspaper being opened 📰, a child asking if the train to Zagreb will pass by again, a grandmother keeping a careful eye on the timetable ⏰. The doors close with a squat little thump and a hiss of air as the uncoupled couplings settle into their quiet alignment.

A Moment of Railway Poetry 🎭

And then the entrance, the moment that makes a person lean forward with a small grin 😊. The locomotive glides into frame, its metal singing a note only a rail buff can recognise, a note that says you are not late, you are not early, you are on the track that belongs to you. The 2044— a name that carries a whisper of decades— shows its grit and its pride in a simple, dignified way. The train to Zagreb pulls away a fraction of a second later, leaving behind a small gust of warm air and the memory of a scene that could be mistaken for cinema, if cinema cared enough to be honest 🎬.

Summer in Croatia 🌞

July in Croatia does not give you a second shot at the cool. So you take the moment as it arrives: the sound of metal on metal, the whistle that carries a hint of a distant station 🎺, the sun glinting off a panel that looks ready to outlive most of us, and the feeling that in the middle of a summer afternoon you have witnessed something of the country’s working soul. The entrance of the class 2044 is not a spectacle; it is a ritual. It is a reminder that even as Zagreb glistens in the distance, the tracks still tell the same old story: resilience, routine, and a little theatre, three chords and a diesel engine 🎵.

The Memory Rides On 🛤️

As the train continues toward its destination, there is a small pause to reflect on the day, the year, and the long arc of Croatia’s rails. The class 2044 might not be the newest star in the horizon ⭐, but on that July afternoon between Turčin and Sveti Ilija, it was the horsepower behind a memory—a memory we ride into Zagreb as if we own a small piece of that summer, forever imprinted on the steel of the tracks 💙.

Wikipedia picture of the day on January 24, 2026: The entrance of the locomotive Hrvatske Željeznice class 2044 with a local train to Zagreb between Turčin and Sveti Ilija, Croatia. July 2009 More Info