The development of the railway network in the Kingdom of Serbia during the late 19th century established a critical geopolitical and economic artery connecting Western Europe with the Near and Middle East. This paper presents the comprehensive findings of the research project "Technical and Architectural Heritage on the Niš–Preševo Railway (Thessaloniki Railway)", evaluating this specific 156.76 km segment within the broader historical and contemporary framework of the Belgrade–Preševo corridor (Pan-European Corridor X).
Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that combines archival historiography with extensive field-survey methodology, this study systematically documents the line’s civil engineering structures, lineside apparatus, and station architecture.The findings reveal a critical tension between infrastructural modernization and heritage preservation. Active structural overhauls along the route have led to the de-staffing, abandonment, and imminent demolition of late-19th-century station buildings and minor halts, which were originally built according to standardized European architectural typologies. Consequently, the authentic photographic and technical registry compiled in this project serves an urgent preservation function.
Furthermore, the paper examines the rich socio-cultural and historical layers of the line, tracing its golden era from 1883 to 1977 when it accommodated legendary luxury services like the Orient Express, as well as documenting its most profound modern tragedy—the 1999 NATO airstrike on a civilian passenger train in the Grdelica Gorge—through a balanced analysis of conflicting international legal and humanitarian reports. Ultimately, this study argues that despite pressing technical and economic constraints, the Thessaloniki Railway possesses unique historical and architectural depth, making it a prime candidate for integration into global industrial heritage tourism networks.

In this article, we address the practical challenges encountered during the management and population of the institutional repository at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade. Furthermore, we describe the development and implementation of an automated data extraction and conversion protocol designed to overcome low manual submission rates and ensure repository completeness.