Banovići // Two Stark Parallel Lines
© John Bills
When I grow up, I want to be an engine driver. I’ll build up my own head of steam, 25 horsepower.
Like all boys, I loved trains when I was young. Building tracks was a point of pride for young John, and my collection of Thomas the Tank Engine toys was my pride and joy. Of course, this didn’t stop me from burying them in the sand on a family holiday and thus losing them to the sea, but don’t judge me. My imaginary son (also called John) loves trains too, but I haven’t heard from him recently. Like my trains, he is lost.
I didn’t put much effort into my degree, but one essay always stands out. The indomitable Mark Hamill (my favourite teacher, always) gave us a simple task; choose a children’s TV show, movie, book, whatever, and write an essay about the values and ethics encouraged by it. Naturally, I chose Thomas the Tank Engine, and re-watched all the episodes to get a better handle on it. The show was ostensibly about anthropomorphic trains, but it was also about hard work, respect, patience, community, friendship and diversity. I think the essay got a B, but I loved it.
But when I pull off, I don’t want to follow timetables or tracks. I will cut new paths through topsoil and tarmac.
So yeah, I was excited to learn about the famous Ćiro of Banovići. Many towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina have themselves a Ćiro, but we didn’t watch Highlander in that media lesson for nothing. Truthfully, there can be only one.
© John Bills
Was Ćiro the main reason for my visiting Banovići? No, absolutely not, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the thing I was looking forward to the most. Trains are awesome, after all. We started our tour with a couple of stationary locomotives, and I got the chance to clamber aboard and wax lyrical about how excited young John would have been. Old John was plenty excited too, albeit now with dirty trousers. I almost fell, although that is par for the course.
Old hands, new power, more miles per hour, strange light in the ancient mills. New sights, old eyes, giant leaps under small skies, a sense of death in the hills.
After a brief stop at what will hopefully become the Museum of Mining and Railways (more on that at a later date), we headed to the mine. Here there were more trains, and the futility of numbers and details grew ever clearer. Comments of weight, volume, distance and time are good and all, but the magic of trains lies in the aesthetic. These incredible inventions allowed countries to develop, they connected the world. Trains made industrial development possible. They revolutionised every single part of the world that they touched.
Banovići was born with the railway. Okay, not entirely accurate, it would be more accurate to say that Banovići was born with its rich deposits of brown coal, but they have been there forever. The railroad between the mines and the main roads (completed in 1946) brought opportunity and a heartbeat to what became a city, a city that is as reliant on both today as it was in the post-war excitement. Ćiro was the poster boy of the entire system. The famous steam locomotive transported workers, materials, coal, food, students, ideas, voices, romances, hope, prosperity and all the rest. Crowds gathered to wave it through stations, its iconic sound filling ears and minds with promise. Ćiro was the light at the end of the tunnel. You can make your own clever point there.
The narrow-gauge railroad between Brčko and Banovići was the first in Yugoslavia, but it wouldn’t be the last. The steam engines rolled around the former country until the end of the ‘70s, and the slow death for steam locomotives began. All that remains is Banovići. Trains still carry coal from the mines here, harking back to a different time while remaining utterly imperative in the current. Trains built the world, after all.
The only thing that I will leave behind is a simple trail, two stark parallel lines that cut their way away across the land, which our children will preserve but won’t understand.
The weather was terrible in Banovići that day, but the light shimmering from my heart was relentless. I was like a kid in a candy store, although the use of that metaphor is an insult to reality. I wasn’t like a kid in a candy store. I was like myself as a child, embracing the simple joys of something bigger and more amazing than myself. I didn’t understand what ‘paf’ meant, but I think it had something to do with this excitement.
It is impossible to become a child again. I once read that it is the most valuable thing taken away from you in life, and now and then, I am inclined to agree. Stood in front of the magnificent steam locomotives of Banovići, such frustrations were a world away, replaced by awe and wonder. The world is beautiful, even when surrounded by dust and oil, even as the rain drizzles down, even as your shoes become drenched. When I say that I want to tell you everything I have ever known, what I mean is that I want you to feel this childlike excitement.
