CROATIA AND SERBIA RESUME RAILWAY TRAFFIC ( Editorial: --> 9944 )

( Editorial: --> 9944 ) VINKOVCI/SID, Nov 11 (Hina) - A train which left the eastern Croatian town of Vinkovci at 10.00 hours Tuesday and arrived in Sid, a border town in Serbia, at 11.18 hours, marked the resumption of railway transport between Croatia and Serbia after six years. The passengers of the train, Croatian Ambassador to Yugoslavia Zvonimir Markovic, Croatian Railways managing director Marijan Klaric, local Croatian officials and representatives of the UN transitional administration in eastern Croatia, were welcomed in Sid by Yugoslav Ambassador to Croatia Veljko Knezevic and Yugoslav Railways Association managing director and Serbian Transport Minister Svetolik Kostadinovic. Croatian Railways managing director Klaric wished for trains between Croatia and Yugoslavia to carry messages of understanding, tolerance and humanity. Serbian Transport Minister Kostadinovic was satisfied with the resumed railway traffic between Croatia and Yugoslavia and assessed it represented a logical continuation of the normalization of relations between the two countries. For next year, Kostadinovic announced an increase in the number of passengers and the overall extent of traffic and the establishment of railway connections with Zurich, Munich and other European cities. Next year, the transport of some 300 tons of goods is expected along the Zagreb-Belgrade line, Kostadinovic said, which is vital to Corridor 10, an important European road and railway route established at the Pan-European Transport Conference in June. Croatia's Klaric recalled that Croatian Railways invested between 130 and 140 million kunas (between USD 21.6 and 23.3 million)in the reconstruction of railroads in the Danube river region of eastern Croatia. The same amount of additional funds would be needed to bring the tracks to the pre-war level, he added. Klaric recalled that before the war, the Zagreb-Belgrade route transported between six and seven million passengers and 11 million tons of goods. We will be satisfied if next year we realize one third of that figure and one half in 1999, said Klaric, adding that international businessmen were already showing interest in redirecting the transport of goods across these routes. (hina) ha jn 111806 MET nov 97