The ZSSKC 771 072-6 seen between Lietavská Lúčka and Porúbka

The railway connecting Žilina to Rajec via Rajecké Teplice, a town famous for its thermal baths was opened in 1898 as a local railway operated by the KsOd - Košice-Oderberger Railway and has an increasingly important role in the public transport of the valley to the South from Žilina. Even though not many people arrive for a wellness holiday by train many of them take the train to the city for a dinner or a sightseeing and the railcars are also a good way of avoiding the morning traffic jams and therefore are used by some commuters. It is no surprise the Ministry of Transport is looking for bidders to operate the line in a public initiative but the cause received - rightfully - bad publicity for offering close to zero time for public companies to prepare giving an unfair advantage to the current operator, the state-owned ZSSK.

I have visited the line before as part of a major roundtrip of Slovakia and have caught the local freight train on the line , but only in rainy, dark weather so I was glad our long trip could start with such a wonderful shot of a freshly-painted locomotive. Our ultimate destination on the trip is even more interesting, a site of pilgrimage among railfans, the Wolsztyn Steam Locomotive Experience. In the upcoming travelogue we are going to follow this trip's route from 2019 with a few follow-up images from an earlier trip in 2018. During that trip we focused on Polish narrow-gauge railways (preferably with steam) that I am going to publish in another article later on.