Only tracks remain on a 50-kilometre section, Slovenske železnice boss Dušan Mes told the Odmevi news show aired by TV Slovenija last night as he described the devastation in the south-western section of the railway network, where train service has been suspended since Friday.

The disruption is causing a huge damage to Luka Koper, the operator of Slovenia's sole commercial port, which is facing a pileup of 2,700 cargo carriages. The situation has prompted the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS) to call on the government to find a solution, possibly in the form of special convoys.

"The Ljubljana-Koper railway, a lifeline for Luka Koper and for Slovenske železnice, is virtually destroyed. We are now trying to remove all fallen trees, power poles and cables so as to ensure transport into and from Luka Koper by means of diesel engines," Mes said, adding that transport could resume by the end of this or the start of next week.

"We are hoping to be able to fix the railway line on Thursday to an extant that cargo transport can resume with diesel engines that we'll borrow to improvise in this way. It will cause much higher costs, though," the railways boss told the public broadcaster.

But he also said that the railway line would only be fit for cargo transport, while passenger service in the section between Borovnica and Pivka "cannot run until electrification is set up again, which I believe will take between four and five months."

Aside from the carriages piled up at the Koper port, the port operator also has 63 train compositions stranded on tracks, including those carrying cars, where the railway operator is providing the security, according to Luka Koper CEO Gašpar Gašpar Mišič.

In the meantime, the port increased transshipment via lorries and secured extra storage room in the port. One of the problems is that ships are leaving the port empty. But if rail transport resumes on Thursday, Gašpar Mišič is hopeful the backlog can be cleared in one to two weeks.

Meanwhile an estimated 35,000 homes around the country spent yet another night without electricity and many roads around the country remain blocked by fallen trees, and debris from destroyed power infrastructure.

The cleanup operation continues but has unfortunately claimed the life of a young linesman in the Pohorje hills above Slovenia's second city Maribor on Wednesday.

The good news is that precipitation will by and large stop today and that temperatures will be above the freezing so the glaze is expected to thaw. On the downside, the thawing may cause flooding.