Steam freight: Despotovac to Resavica

Mid-way through our unexpectedly leisurely (and delicious) lunch in Despotovac we received confirmation that our locomotive had set off on its return, having turned at Resavica.

Our Serbian guide, Dragan, had encouraged the crew not to go for more coal (they had plenty for our needs and time was running out if we were to get any shots in the remaining light of the day) but when Bernd asked if they had taken water, Dragan said no but ‘alles ist unter kontrolle!’ which prompted laughter across the dining room. It was a little hard to believe that anything might go to plan given our luck so far today…

Departure from Despotovac

Around 3pm 33-087 returned to Despotovac and after a shot of a false departure we re-joined the train, this time taking up residence in a freight car behind the loco with nothing much to hang onto, let alone any creature comforts. It was a strange way to travel, made even odder by the liberal sprinkling of salt across the floor of the car (maybe the previous occupants of the car were carcasses of meat or containers of fish!?). It was actually quite good fun and certainly more spacious than my usual commuting experience into London!

33-087 on the approach to Dvoriste

Soon we were well under way and made good progress up the line to the more scenic hilly stretches. We stopped just outside Dvorište and photographed two runpasts from the hillside before walking up the line to photograph a third runpast through the station.

Dvorište

33-087 departs from Dvorište

In theory the stop at Dvorište should have been our last opportunity to photograph 33-087 under steam today as the water was running low, but by chance our freight train was stopped just outside Resavica by a signal. This gave us the opportunity to walk up to the station yard and watch 33-087 haul the train the final yards into Resavica (luckily just before the light disappeared from the valley floor).

Arrival at Resavica

All in all it had been a very frustrating day. Instead of photographing runpasts from 7.30am to 2pm we had to make do with about an hour or so between 3 and 4pm. Hopefully tomorrow will be better – a full day of steam action would be just perfect.