2013

This wasn't actually where I got my train, as the international Eurocity trains to the Czech Republic leave from Meidling, rather than Hauptbahnhof. I ended up, as I recall, taking the U-Bahn to Hbf, and then the S-Bahn to Meidling. Apologies if I don't know much about the OBB's S-Bahn stock.

Meidling isn't just a station, of course. I was very early for my train, so I wandered around the neighborhood, and among other things I found this interesting mosaic on this apartment building.

Here's the station sign for Wien Meidling, after I arrived to wait for my train home.

This really was my train back to Prague, and unusually for a Eurocity, #1216 239-4 would take us all the way, with no locomotive change. The OBB 1216 Class are increasingly known by the easier-to-remember name of "Taurus," as they increasinly are popular export units. Even Amtrak have bought them in the form of the Cities Sprinter, which is a slight modification to meet their specifications (the 9 aspect PRR-style cab signals, the Amtrak pantograph, a bell, etc.).

This photo had a light leak, so it was very difficult to edit it to an acceptable standard. In the end, I minimized the damage by converting it to black and white. I liked the photo, so I figured it was worth it.

After I spent over an hour fixing my film shot of Simmering, I was frustrated to find that I had had a clean cameraphone shot the whole time. Still, I don't like it as much.

This was on the Czech border, coming into Breclav, the former border checkpoint pre-Schengen. That locomotive is a Class 731 diesel switcher of Ceske Drahy, #731001-4.

Here we are getting closer to Nadrazi Breclav.

The historic capital of Moravia, and the second largest city in the Czech Republic, is Brno, and accordingly it has a sizeable station. This was taken with my cameraphone at dusk while in motion, hence the blurring and strange lighting.

This was the departure from Brno.

As I said previously, OBB #1216 239-4 took us all the way to Prague.

Carodejnice, or "Witch Burning Night," or in German "Walpurgisnacht," for St. Walpurga (c. 710-777), is maybe the most politically incorrect holiday in Europe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carodejnice No one is actually burned in the modern version, but a witch is burned in effigy. It is held every year on the 30th of April, which is supposed to be six months before Halloween/All Hallows/All Saints/Ween. It doesn't happen in just one place, but is a national (actually international) holiday. I have a photo of another one in 2009 elsewhere on iPernity. The other photo was taken in Landskroun, but this one was in Centralni Park Pankrac. In spite of the theme, it's considered a family friendly holiday with food and music.

This art van, a VW Transporter of maybe 1980's or 1990's vintage, was being used by one of the concessions at the Carodejnice event.

"Silicon Hill," is really Strahov, a neighborhood on a hill overlooking the rest of Prague. It's adjacent to Petrin, and the Petrin tower (the Eiffel Tower copy) can be seen from here. It's called Silicon Hill because some of CVUT's buildings are located here, and you can see some of the dorms in the background of this photo. CVUT is a technical university, obviously, but I've attended free lectures there in other subjects like history.

This band is called Gattaca. I thought that I had photos of them on iPernity already, but I guess not. They're a hardcore band from Prague, and I would argue they're one of the best. This show was at Klub 007, maybe the most famous punk club in Prague, which actually has been in operation since 1969, on and off, and continuously since 1989.

Here's an alternate shot of Gattaca.

This is an original Prague Metro train, with only four cars on it. These are considered the Ecs Class, and were built by Metrovagonmash in the Soviet Union in 1974. They remained in service on the C Line until 1997, but ultimately were pulled from service prematurely because they were overweight and caused too much damage to Nuselsky Most. Amazingly, Nuselsky Most had been stress-tested by filling its street level entirely with Soviet tanks (I don't know the class, but in the films I've seen they look like T-55's or T-62's).

This was a concert by the hardcore band Linterno at Cafe na pul cesty in Prague.