"Don't hesitate to follow your path, no matter the obstacles"

Zagreb, March 7, 2025 – On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the portal Index published an interview with Valerija Androtić, a 20-year-old locomotive driver at ENNA Transport. In the interview, Valerija explained why she chose a career in the railway industry, the biggest challenges of the job, and why driving a freight train is her dream job.

Below, we bring you the interview with our locomotive driver.

From a young age, VALERIJA ANDROTIĆ has been breaking stereotypes about women. Ever since she was a little girl in her hometown of Peteranec, near Koprivnica, counting freight train wagons as they passed by, she knew she wanted to work on the railway one day. No one in her family had any experience in the field, so Valerija didn’t even know that female locomotive drivers existed. The moment she first saw a woman operating a freight train changed her perspective on the world.

“When I was still in elementary school, on a train to Zagreb, I encountered a female locomotive driver for the first time—my current colleague, who was then working in passenger transport,” she shared this childhood memory after giving us a tour of the interior of a freight train “parked” at the Zagreb Marshalling Yard. She showed us what her workplace looks like.

“That moment intrigued me so much that I decided I would drive a train myself one day,” she said.

At just 20 years old, Valerija is one of only three female locomotive drivers employed at ENNA Transport, a company specializing in railway cargo transport.

Read the full interview on Index.hr.

Photo: Hana Kajari/Index