Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: railway

The model train display was much larger than just the Merkur tinplate sets. Here we can see a variety of makes and scales.

Merkur are better known for their erector sets, but at one time they also built tinplate toy trains. I'm not sure about the scale of these, but they could be O. They look close to it, anyway. Does anybody know? Nowadays Merkur specialise in TT Scale, although their website only had track the last time I looked.

This was just a head-on shot of the Albatros that I took on a whim. Here it's seen still on the service track in the museum.

Built between 1958 and 1961 by CKD, these road switchers were reclassified as CSD (later CD) Class 720 under the 1988 renumbering. Out of 150 built for CSD and 83 for Czech industrial railways, a number of them are still in service, although mostly as MOW units. In addition to the Czech units, some were exported to Albania, Iraq, and East Germany.

Normally, to tour the engine shed (or back shop, I'm not sure what the correct term would be in this case), you need to make an appointment, but I got around this problem by shooting this through the door. I'm assuming that #387.043 is operable, otherwise it wouldn't be here, and in any case the drivers and valve gear were wet with oil. The museum claims its been out of service since 2001, but maybe they intend to change that, or already have. #387.043 is a Class 387 Pacific with 1546kW (2074 horsepower) of power, and a top speed, officially sanctioned, of 120Km/h, making it more impressive than most of the other express power at the museum (the museum claims 110Km/h, so maybe they've downgraded it), in spite of it being pretty old. #387.043 was built by Skoda in 1937, and the 43 locomotives of the 387 Class were built between 1926 and 1937, so this would make it one of the last ones built. Strangely, the Czechs call this locomotive a "Mikado," in spite of it being a 4-6-2 rather than a 2-8-2. They cite the short chimney as the reason, but that seems odd given that the Mikado name specifically denotes a 2-8-2 under the Whyte system (although as far as I know Whyte himself didn't officially endorse the names, just the configurations).

Here's one of several shots that I took of the turntable for the roundhouse. This head-on view is my favorite.

This is an alternate shot that I took of the roundhouse.

Here's a head-on shot of #T669.0085. I like this shot, but I realise that the top of it is a bit overexposed. Cameraphones don't have much flexibility when it comes to this problem.

This is a nicely-restored Class T669 diesel road switcher, although I don't know if it's operable. I'm assuming it is, since it wouldn't make sense to go to this much trouble without restoring it completely. Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, these locomotives were introduced in 1963, being built both by CKD and SMZ Dubica, and stayed in production until 1979, according to Wikipedia. Total production was 109, although not all of these survive today. The original power rating for them was 993kW (1332 horsepower), and the maximum speed was 90Km/h, adequate for freight service but not really ideal for passenger service. These locomotives were particularly liked as very heavy switchers. Note the C trucks, which aren't as common on Czech diesels as on American diesels. Some were rebuilt in 1967-1969, and some still run in regular service today, although most of them work for companies other than CD, as CSD and later CD lost interest in them as electrification was extended. Some were also built for export to the Soviet Union, Iraq, Syria, Albania, Poland, and India.

The first time I spotted this locomotive was in Decin, where it's based. It's fully operational, but wasn't in steam when I visited the museum. It's a 475 Class 4-8-2, a generation later than the 498 Class (except for the actual record-breaking Albatros, which was a 498.1 Class from the 1950's), which means that this class was built from 1945 until 1951 by Skoda. Power is 1480kW (1985 horsepower), and the officially recognised maximum speed is 100Km/h, although these locomotives are almost certainly capable of going faster.

Here are some older coaches again. These ones have 1890's-style closed platforms, depressed a bit from the rest of the carbodies, but in all likelihood these are of much more recent vintage.

Here's a fairly-modern 2nd Class smooth side streamline coach, of what vintage I don't know. Streamline equipment generally didn't come into use on CSD until the 1960's, so it's probably from sometime around then. Again, a spotter's guide for passenger cars would be good to have.

Here's the Albatros being watered for its return trip to Praha Branik. This water spout is the one located within the museum grounds, next to the coal bunker. In the lower left corner of this photo you can also see an ashpit, which might double as an inspection pit. It's cramped, though, so probably they would be better off using one in the shops.

This is the fully-active coal bunker used at the CD Muzeum for supplying operable steam locomotives. The narrow-gauge mining track into it is an interesting touch, I think.

Here's a rear view of the cylinders.

I don't know anything about these scrapped cylinders other than that they're a bank of three, which is somewhat unusual, and that some parts appear to be bent, suggesting a wreck rather than scrapping. I could have just been a sloppy scrapping job, too, but for some reason these cylinders were saved, and ended up in this museum. The most interesting question to ask might be simply why?

This is a second shot of the same car. I note that the destination board appears to be from a very recent excursion.

This is an old open-platform wooden coach, which appears to be in pretty good shape, good enough to be serviceable. It's possible to see coaches like this on excursion trains in the Czech Republic, and my understanding is that they were used quite late in mainline and branchline service, too. Some were in fact built as late as the 1940's, in spite of being 50 years out of date by that point.