How it started
History
The company was first founded as the National Railways of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SCS) by incorporating the already existing railway companies and assets in 1918. It became a founding member of the International Union of Railways in 1922, receiving UIC country code 72. In 1929, it was renamed along with the country to Yugoslav State Railways (JDŽ).
As Yugoslavia underwent occupation and partition by Axis powers during 1941, Yugoslav State Railways ceased to exist and its rolling stock was divided between Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB), Hungarian State Railways (MÁV), Bulgarian State Railways (BDŽ), Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) and the two new railway companies that were created to serve Independent State of Croatia and Nedić's Serbia: Croatian State Railways (HDŽ) and Serbian State Railways (SDŽ), respectively. By the end of the Second World War, the railways suffered considerable destruction and only with great effort was it re-established after the war. Many locomotives were returned, changed or handed over as reparations to Yugoslavia. With the handover of the eastern territory of Trieste to Yugoslavia, about 100 km of railway network with one-way current (3 kV) became part of JDŽ. In 1952 it was renamed Yugoslav Railways (JŽ).
In the 1950s work began on the construction of the Montenegrin section of Belgrade-Bar railway. The first section from Bar to Podgorica was completed in 1959 (becoming the first section of standard gauge railway in Montenegro). However, due to budget concerns and arguments between state and federal authorities, the line was paid for by Montenegro and Serbia. The Montenegrin section of Belgrade-Bar railway project (from Bar to Vrbnica, the border with Serbia) was completed in 1976, connecting Bar and Podgorica with northern Montenegro, Serbia, and the European rail network.
At the beginning of the conflicts in SFR Yugoslavia, the railway administrations of the separate republics began to disintegrate, that is, to separate from the Union of Yugoslav Railways (ZJZ). ŽG Ljubljana and HŽP Zagreb separated first on 8 October 1991, ZTP Sarajevo on 31 May 1992, and Macedonian Railways became independent on 1 July 1993, leaving only Serbian, Montenegro and Kosovar railways under Belgrade control. During the NATO bombings on FR Yugoslavia, a significant part of the railway and facilities on the Serbian railway network was destroyed or disabled. In 2004 Montenegrin Railways withdrew from the Union of Yugoslav Railways, the railway union officially ceased to exist with the entry into force of the new law on railways of the Republic of Serbia, which was passed in 2005.
From Wikipedia’s article on Yugoslav Railways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2