The Brčko-Banovići railway, a railway in northern Bosnia, was created as a result of the first youth labor action in Yugoslavia. 62,268 young people from all over Yugoslavia and more than 1,000 brigadiers from abroad worked on its construction.
The idea of building a railway that would connect the rich coal deposits of the Banovići basin with the main roads, and through them with distant consumer centers, existed even before the Second World War. After the end of the war, still in the period of reconstruction of Yugoslavia from the destruction of the war, and before the start of the planned construction of the socialist economy, this was one of the first major investment projects.
For the future five-year plan in a free Yugoslavia, it was very necessary to secure a solid raw material base. The rich deposits of Banovići coal, relatively high-calorie for Yugoslav conditions, with very favorable exploitation conditions, encouraged the highest governing bodies of the economy, that as early as the beginning of 1946. decided to begin the construction of this railway during that year. It was predicted and planned that the railway would be completed in seven months. That task was completed in record time.
In mid-March 1946, the construction department of the then Ministry of Transport received an order to start the preparatory works. The construction report was completed in less than a month. Preparations began on April 1st, and that date is the Day of the start of youth work actions. On May 1, the first youth work brigades opened work on the 92 km long Brčko-Banovići railway.
The first train on this line passed on November 7, 1946.
In addition to 92 km of railway, the following was also done:
• 11.5 kilometers of station gauge rails.
• 2,100 telephone poles with 14 thousand kilograms of telephone wire.
• 13 warehouses,
• 31 residential buildings with 64 apartments,
• 29 switch houses,
• 34 wells,
• 4 buildings with furnace workshops and
• 10 auxiliary boiler rooms with 4 water stations
Miroslav Krleža said about this railway: “This is certainly not the first railway in the world, but it is the first that was built by children”.
