– Selim Pengili –
Our Country’s Railway Network, a Magnificent Achievement of Socialism
Across every corner of our country, from Guri i Kuq near Pogradec to Han i Hotit, and from Ballsh to Vlora, iron rails have been laid and continue to extend. The whistles of trains resound day and night, transporting thousands upon thousands of people to different regions of the country, together with thousands of tonnes of goods. The entire railway network of our country is a creation of socialism, an enduring monument to the intellect and labour of our heroic youth.
In pre-Liberation Albania, railways were nothing more than a dream. Railway transport did not exist at all, nor could there be any serious discussion of it. At that time, Albania was the only country without a railway line.
That dream, however, began to take shape with remarkable momentum immediately after the victory of our people’s revolution. From the very beginning, the Party, with great foresight, attached considerable importance to railway transport. During the first years after Liberation, construction commenced on the country’s first railway lines. For the first time in our nation’s history, the people’s long-cherished aspiration for Albania to possess railways was becoming a reality. Thus, on 7 November 1947, the Durrës-Peqin railway was inaugurated by the beloved leader of the Party and our people, Comrade Enver Hoxha, opening a new chapter in the history of the country’s transport development. The construction of this 44-kilometre railway line took nine months and involved 33,000 young male and female volunteers. Through their labour they once again demonstrated, with great conviction, their love for the homeland, their spirit of mass heroism and their revolutionary readiness. This iron road, the pioneer of our railway transport system, would be followed by hundreds of additional kilometres of track which, over the following four decades, linked many regions of our country. Accordingly, in 1948 construction began on another railway line, connecting Durrës with Tirana, which entered service in February 1949. In December 1950 the Peqin-Elbasan line was completed. In 1963 the Vora-Laç railway was constructed, while in October 1968 the Rrogozhina-Fier line was opened to traffic. Thereafter, throughout these years, railway lines were built to Guri i Kuq, Ballsh and Shkodra, while work continued on the imminent completion of two further railways, extending to Vlora and Han i Hotit.
As a consequence of this development, our country today possesses a powerful railway transport system capable of meeting the full requirements of the national economy for freight movement by rail. Railway transport now performs a volume of work, measured in tonne-kilometres, 84.5 times greater than it did in 1954.
When speaking of the development of the country’s railway network, it is impossible to separate it from the work of the youth. Every span of railway alignment constructed over these 40 years has been soaked with the tireless sweat of young people and youth volunteer brigades. Replacing one another in succession, they came in wave after wave from every part of the country, from towns and villages alike, including the most remote regions. The attractive action settlements established for these voluntary campaigns blossomed like flowers in Durrës, Peqin, Rrogozhina, the Myzeqe plain, Elbasan, the mountains of Librazhd, the shores of the picturesque Lake Pogradec and the heart of Mallakastra, as well as across the plains of Zadrima — wherever iron rails needed to be laid. In these settlements generations of young volunteers worked together, forged lasting friendships and, through their shared labour, left behind the iron necklace of railway tracks. Life and work in these settlements also served as a great school of revolutionary education and ideological tempering, where the finest qualities were most clearly displayed and strengthened: the spirit of socialist collectivism, heroism, comradeship, devotion to labour and respect for socialist property. During the construction of these railways, the youth, inspired by a revolutionary spirit and under the leadership of the Party, waged a determined struggle against illiteracy, patriarchal customs and religious beliefs. As an assault force, through its revolutionary militancy, it affirmed the norms of our socialist morality. Today the whistle of the train echoes from south to north. The railway tracks continue to spread and stretch ever further without end.
(By Selim Pengili)
(Translated by NEPH from the Albanian original)