BELGRADE, Oct. 19 — An investigation into the dilatory habits of Yugoslav railroad trains has exposed a negative attitude on the part of some train personnel, the Communist organ “Borba” revealed today.
In one case a train crew, seduced by visions of roast pork, paused near the Croatian town of Klenak and, abandoning the train, took off for the country fair at Shabats, across the Sava River, where they bought themselves a sow and five suckling pigs.
And in Svetozarevo, said “Borba,” the signal man was drunk the whole night. This sort of thing plus necessary repairs on the mainlines and lack of good coal for the locomotives is making trains later than ever, “Borba” complains. In July the average train was twenty-two seconds late per kilometer, in August it was twenty-five seconds behind kilometer schedule, and in September thirty-seven.
With an acute shortage of transportation these delays are costly to the national economy. “Borba” blames “poor organization, poor technical training of officials and lack of discipline among individual officers,” and said that Belgrade districts were exceptionally bad. The directors had become mere statisticians and did nothing to correct the delays.
— The New York Herald, European Edition, Oct. 20, 1948