The ceremony was organised by the Hrpelje - Kozina and Koper municipalities as well as the Črni Kal and Prešnica local communities with the help of Koper Port and Slovenian Railways. A special train brought many locals who live by the railway line, former railway workers and others who are connected with the line in one way or the other, to Dol near Hrastovlje, starting its journey in Divača. The participants noted how quickly the line was built half a century ago.

Nowadays up to 100 trains per day use the railway line to transport cargo to and from the port. “This has become the busiest monorail in Europe in terms of freight trains. It’s high time an alternative line is built. The quantities currently being transported from Koper increased by ten percent from last year, which is a fairly major problem for traffic operating as well as for the people who live by the railway here,” explains the director of Slovenian Railways Dušan Mes.

Mes has thus thanked the local for patience and predicted about seven more very challenging years. President of the Črni Kal community Janko Sever hopes that the government’s pledge to build two tracks of the new, second railway line will be fulfilled, “so that the people can have normal lives again, so that we won’t live in danger, and that we can protect our water source as well as the Natura 2000 protected areas. We hope this will come true. Ten years from now we’d like this to be a bicycle lane.”
The line, which can only accommodate two passenger trains per day due to busy cargo transport, will be fully closed for five day in December to renovate a few sections.