Narrow gauge railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Most Bosnian-gauge railway lines were built during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Several 760 mm (2 ft 5 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ in) gauge railways were planned in order to link the extensive narrow-gauge railways in the Austro-Hungarian Empire with those in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Until the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in 1912 several were constructed.

Between World War I and World War II the network was extended significantly, at the end connecting the Adriatic Coast with Belgrade, with the network growing to around 1500 km in length.

Construction of a new standard-gauge line from Sarajevo to Ploče on the Adriatic in 1966 replaced the 760 mm (2 ft 5 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ in) Narentabahn from Sarajevo to the coast and had the effect of isolating the south-western narrow-gauge system from the 760 mm (2 ft 5 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ in) railways starting at Sarajevo. With the demise of a connecting network all the other remaining narrow-gauge lines were then at risk and restricted to local traffic.

The system based on the Adriatic closed in 1975. By 1979 the rest of the Bosnian lines had closed. In Serbia the last 760 mm (2 ft 5 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ in) line closed in 1983. The most modern diesel railcars were sold to the Portuguese Railways (where they regauged to metre gauge for use on the Douro Valley metre-gauge lines, such as the Tua line), becoming Portuguese train type 9700.

...
Wikipedia