Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: pantograph

This was taken the same day as the pump shot, also at Hostivar. You can't see it easily in this shot, but this Class 451 Pantograph was in the new blue livery.

Here's the newly modernised mainline south of Senohraby, albeit obscured by snow.

Nadrazi Senohraby was recently modernised, and so I've been taking more photos there this year than in the past. The trains, however, are often still ancient, like this Class 451 "Pantograph" EMU from the 1960's.

In spite of the vandalism mentioned earlier, and the advanced age of the Class 451 and 452 "Pantograph" EMU's, the units are still being repainted again and again. This was the first one that I saw in the new two-tone blue and grey local livery.

This might have been the most successful of my edits today, as I didn't attempt to go overboard with this one.

Here's my second attempt at supersaturating this photo...

I raised the saturation, or actually the contrast, on this one, too, but it will also be redone.

Again I attempted a supersaturated edit....that I'm not completely satisfied with and will likely redo.

Here's another shot taken closer up.

I also did a lot more train watching in Nadrazi Praha-Hostivar in 2008, since it's become more convenient for me lately. I guess this is a good thing, as it has more traffic than Cercany or some of the other places I've gravitated towards in the past.

This is, as far as I know, the pioneering Class 451 "Pantograph" EMU from 1964, unless this is a renumbered fake. They've tried to glorify its heritage somewhat by painting it in the original CSD green-blue with red stripes, only without the red stars and with the modern CD logo.

Recently, Ceske Drahy rebranded many of their local services out of Prague, using their new 471 and 971 EMUs, as "City Elephant" services. The old 451 and 452 pantographs have never been repainted, though, so some joker, either a vandal or an actual Ceske Drahy employee, has dubbed #451 076-4 "City Frog," I'm sure as a joke about how ridiculous the name is. If you can name a 471 an elephant when it doesn't have elephant ears or any other feature resembling an elephant, then why not call a 451 a frog? The "face" of it might actually look more like a frog than a 471 resembles an elephant, actually.

This one was taken in Amsterdam Centraal in 1998 (in spite of the copyright date), and because of its relative abstraction I've posted it here. I shot it with either Kodak Tri-X or Ilford Delta 400 (I don't remember which), and then I cranked up the contrast after scanning it. In the original prints, I eventually did the same with filters, but the print I scanned was kind of soupy.

451s are very common on local services on electrified lines on Ceske Drahy, and I've already discussed them in detail elsewhere. This one is arriving from Benesov U Prahy with a local, and will also form the return service after unloading.

This is #451060-9 after working a service from Prague, waiting at Cercany for the highball to Benesov U Prahy, where it will terminate and switch direction to work a return service to Prague. Notice the Class 810 railbus and the freight to the right. Cercany is a very busy station, in spite of Cercany being a relatively small town. There's plenty of business, too, as the only reason the platform isn't crawling with people is that the train is already loaded.

As #451060-9 was waiting for the highball, #452013-6 pulled in with a local for Praha Hlavni Nadrazi. It was the early afternoon, so the glare to the right is the setting winter sun.

This is one of my favorite pantograph shots. I really like the contrast between the snow and the darkness under the canopy, especially considering that most details in the photo came out fine, esepecially on the train itself.

In addition to the new Class 471s and 971s, Masarykovo still hosts services operated by the older 451 and 452 classes, although they are gradually dwindling in number. Hlavni Nadrazi is generally the better place to spot "pantographs" if that's really what you're after.