|  | The first railway line on the territory of Bulgaria, connecting Ruse and Varna, was put into operation on 7 November 1866.
According to the Railway Act, passed by the National Assembly on 31 January 1885, the state entirely undertook the building and the operation of the railway network in Bulgaria. Based on this act, the system of the Bulgarian state railways was established.
On 1 August 1888, the first railway line connecting Caribrod-Sofia-Vakarel was opened, entirely designed and built by Bulgarian engineers and architects.
Eminent figures of the socio-political life of Bulgaria at the end of the 19th century such as Todor Kableškov, Ilarion Dragostinov and Zahari Stojanov worked as railwaymen.
At that time one of the places for entertainment on a holiday was the railway station. After leaving the church, men and women, "dressed up as if for a wedding", went to the railway station to stay there for an hour or two, to watch the arrival and departure of the trains. It was a common conviction that every decent citizen ought to come to the station at least once a month, when the weather was nice, to have a bottle of "lemonate" in the buffet where his or her attire was expected to be seen by everybody. These festive visits were discontinued when platform tickets were introduced.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the train coaches were small and had compartments that did not communicate with each other; the doors of the compartments were on both sides. The conductors of the train always appeared unexpectedly on the windows of the doors like some devils jumping automatically out of a small box; in the evenings they wore small gas torches hanging on their chests. The sign for the departure of the train was three rings of a bell hanging on the façade, after which the conductor whistled to the engine driver with a small horn and called out (in German) "Vertig!".
The presence of a railway station in every town, however unimportant the town was, gave it an air of a cosmopolitan crossroad. This was mostly true of border stations line Caribrod (that was on the territory of Bulgaria at that time). The buffet at the station was also famous in Sofia for its good kitchen. Usually, when the travelers were quite a few, our artistic cook used to play his part: with a white apron and a white bonnet, he passed through the hall crowded with passengers, headed towards our table, holding high in front of him a tray with a bulging golden-white omelette-soufflé, covered with raspberry juice and sugar, shuffling on which were the blue small flames of burning rum. This was the fame of the establishment for the foreigners: they had to remember their passage into or out of the Bulgarian land.
On 20 December 1906, the first general railway strike began, supported by several leading political parties and trade unions. The strike ended on 31 January 1907, after the government satisfied the demands of the railwaymen (an eight-hour working day, ensuring safety, security and hygiene, etc.).
In June 1920, all the people celebrated the 70th jubilee of the great Bulgarian writer Ivan Vazov. The basic festivities took place in Plovdiv. A special train was launched for the purpose, traveling on which was the jubilee celebrity, ministers, professors, academicians, eminent public figures and writers (it was an interesting detail that until 9 September 1944 the members of the Writers’ Union had the privilege of traveling free of charge on the Bulgarian state railways).
It is worth noting here that one of the prominent contemporary poets of Bulgaria, distinguished by a unique poetic expression, Nikola Vapcarov, worked for 2 years as a stoker at the Locomotive Shed Depot in Sofia.
In 1950, it was for the first time that the Railwayman’s Day was celebrated – on the first Sunday of August.
In 1963, the first electrified track Sofia – Plovdiv was put into operation.
In 1978, the Varna-Ilichevsk ferry service was launched.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the world witnessed Bulgaria’s efforts focused on the accession of the country into the EU. In this respect, Bulgaria started to implement the relevant EU directives, as well as the practice of many European states, and on 1 January 2002 the new Railway Transport Act entered into force, passed earlier by the National Assembly. In pursuance of this act, the Bulgarian State Railways National Company was split into two separate companies: a railway operator (BDZ EAD) and an infrastructure company (Railway Infrastructure National Company).
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Bibliography: Railway Transport in Bulgaria: 1866-1983 (in Bulgarian), by several authors; 100 Years of Bulgarian State Railways (in Bulgarian), by several authors; The Locomotives of the Bulgarian State Railways (in Bulgarian), by D. Dejanov, S. Dejanov; A Plovdiv Chronicle (in Bulgarian), by N. Alvadžiev; Pages of a Life Story (in Bulgarian), by D. Simidov; Journey Through the Years (in Bulgarian), by K. Konstantinov. |
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