Trainspotting

The eastern part of Ljubljana basin – Polje, Zadobrova, Beričevo, Zalog, Kašelj – is a curious mix of agricultural, industrial, and leisure areas. The fertile soil brought by Sava and Ljubljanica rivers supports a thriving vegetables production, the flat and well connected area is ideal for industrial and infrastructural enterprises, and Zajčja dobrava – Rabbit’s grove – is a protected landscape park boasting one of the last remnants of lowland Quercus robur oak forests that once covered the whole Sava plain.

Probably the largest, at least by area, industrial-infrastuctural thing here is the huge Zalog marshalling yard, the largest in the country. The iron horse first rode into Ljubljana in 1849 when the Southern Railways completed the line from Vienna to Ljubljana, and later onward to then largest Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste. The much-needed marshalling yard was built during the World War I and expanded many times later.

Zalog Marshalling Yard ortophoto

Zalog marshalling yard can manage up to 3000 railway cars per day, on over 40 tracks (total length over 40 km!) with two humps over which the cars roll, shunted by gravity.

It is one of the largest in this part of Europe, servicing the European railway corridors V. and X., incessantly assembling cargo trains going from Lisbon to Kyiv and from Hamburg to Thessaloniki.

Zajčja dobrava landscape park is a nice place to fly kites, and a bit underutilised by us (we had an International kite festival here in 2019, after which we started to prioritise Ljubljana Marshes kite flying spot). Meadows and oak groves make one of the nicest outdoors activities area in Ljubljana. People come here to jog and walk, have a picnic, play football and badminton, ride horses, and there is a nice restaurant in the middle of the park.

Kite aerial view across ZAjčja dobrava and the marshalling yard towards Zalog, Kašelj and the hills beyond the eastern end of Ljubljana basin

Anyhow, we got there, we lofted the kites, and watched the trains roll by. A double zen! (Triple, if one counts the beer) 😉

It wasn’t all zen, as we nearly tangled the kites …

The lines are coming uncomfortably close!

But all went well – no aerial accidents this time!

The incredible stability of a Rokkaku kite enticed us to try to shoot a couple of kite aerial videos …

(The colour overkill is a camera quirk we have yet to figure out how to tame.)

The stability of the Rokkaku is really incredible:

And a truly mighty train roared past …

All in all, it was a cool session, and we will definitely come back to Zajčja dobrava. Kites love the place!

See the cyan Spark rokkaku?

Kite aerial photos shot with Nikon P330 on The Spark rokkaku, and with Insta360 on The Venerable Blue rokkaku.

Kite aerial video shot with Insta360 on The Venerable Blue rokkaku.

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