One of the lovcations in Bulgaria which took on an allocation of the Siemens Desiro DMUs is Dimitrovgrad. These are allocated to work services on the Podkova branch. Unreliability of these sets has already been reported and some 6 months after my visit in September 2012 things have not improved. Thanks to a knowledgable contact, I was informed shortly before my visit that services on the Podkova branch had been cancelled and replaced by buses due to a shortage of DMUs. Due to short turnaround times and some stations not equipped with run round facilities, loco hauled replacements were not a viable option. However despite last minute re-planning (as I had pre-booked hotel accommodation at the last big town before the end of the line, Momchilgrad) I decided to omit the branch. However, it appears enough DMUs were found by the time I visited Dimitrovgrad on 28 September 2012.