Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: railway

I just randomly shot this at Hostivar, but I really like how it came out. I'm not sure why.

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.

I've taken shots of this pump before, but this time I decided I'd try it one more time, and I liked the result so I decided to post it. This was taken with my Ikoflex, and this roll, while a lab tech told me it was poorly developed (by a professional lab), I still consider it to be technically my best Ikoflex black and white roll so far.

I took this at the zoo stop on the DPML (Liberec) tram system. The dual gauge is in order to facilitate operation to Jablonec, which has a 1-metre narrow-gauge tram system. Actually, as pre-1990's tram lines go, this route is relatively new, having not been completed until 1955. Since 1969, however, the line to Liberec has been the only surviving tram line in Jablonec, and is now operated by DPML. Even the line to Liberec saw sporadic use in the 1970's and 1980's, as reconstruction work was done, and planning argued over. The current operation dates to December 17th, 1989, exactly one month after the Velvet Revolution. The line is currently under reconstruction again, so I'm not aware of what the current service disruptions are. It is proposed as part of the new rebuilding to convert the Jablonec line to standard gauge, but I didn't see evidence of this for certain when I was in Jablonec or Liberec.

When I did my second walking tour of Stara Linka 011, I decided to go as far as hikers are currently allowed (the line isn't fully converted yet, I found out). I took some photos, and did a video (I can't decide whether to post it yet), but some of my most interesting shots were of buildings. I shot this one because of the old Redua Cokolada (Chocolate) ad. I've never seen Redua in stores, so I'm assuming the company is out of business. In addition, because the Communists placed substantial restrictions on advertising (with many exceptions like Skoda, Bata, and so on), I was wondering if the company predated 1948.

These were blocks of flats on the final curve as Stara Linka 011 heads into Hlavni Nadrazi. The yellowish coloring is from the setting sunlight.

By the time we got to Prague the next morning, long after the sun had come up, the trainboard said we were 130 minutes late (it's actually hard to read in this crappy cameraphone shot), but again we were later. This was several weeks ago, but as I said my friends are still talking about it now. One of them was also late on the same train this morning.

....then the Metropol pulled in, and we didn't pull out. In the end, we opted for the Metropol since we figured it would get priority. In the end, we were right.

This train, which was also late, actually arrived before the Metropol, and it was also headed to Prague. I ran over to Platform 1 (I think that's the station side one in Brno), and boarded it with another person who wanted to experiment....

This trip is becoming a bit of a legend with my friends, even though it wasn't anything special. Basically, I chose not to stay over in Brno because I had to work the next day and I needed to get back to Prague reasonably quickly, so I figured I'd take the famous EuroNight sleeper train the "Metropol," which runs from Budapest to Berlin. This train isn't always on time, though, and in this case it was spectacularly late. In fact, it was probably the latest train I had ever had to wait for other than in the United States or Britain. The trainboard says that as of the time I took the photo it was 120 minutes late, but by the time it departed I think it was even later. Long before that, the Czechs on the platform were swearing in English. If you think about it, who wants to spend over two hours standing on a station platform in the middle of the night? What if it had been winter?

Here's a rather odd class of electric locomotive, the Class 230. Built by Skoda from 1966-1967 for Ceskoslovenske Drahy, these streamlined, very retro-looking locomotives are still in service on Ceske Drahy today, although some were exported to Bulgaria in the late 1960's and early 1970's. They're rated at 3,080Kw, or 4,130 horsepower, which would still have been very impressive at the time, and they have a maximum service speed of 110Km/h (68 m.p.h.), meaning that they're already obsolete for express passenger services. This one is marked, however, for the CD Cargo business unit, so it's probably well-utilised.

This was a less blurred and distorted shot of a Pendolino passing us, but I still didn't get the number because the coupler cover was open, and this is normally where the number is.

One of the odd things about my Sony Ericsson Walkman W302 cameraphone is that when I take a shot of something passing by it quickly, not only does the subject blur, but it appears tilted diagonally, as here. I especially noticed this behaviour on the Brno trip, and I still haven't figured out exactly what causes it. This photo is of a ZSSK (Slovak Railways) Class 350 electric, which would have at one time been a CSD locomotive when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were united, along with their national railways. These locomotives were built by Skoda from 1974 until 1976, put out 4,000Kw (5,365 horsepower), and could operate (and still do) at speeds of up to 160Km/h (100 m.p.h.), meaning that they can be used on the fastest Eurocity and Intercity services in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Following on the existing theme of towns with the same name in the Czech Republic, here's Usti nad Orlici, as opposed to the better-known Usti nad Labem. This station building looks quintessentially Central European to me, perhaps even Austrian, which makes some sense given that Bohemia and Moravia used to be part of the Austrian Empire.

Here you can just see the tower of the radnice, or town hall, in Brandys nad Orlici (or at least I think that's the radnice).

There are actually several towns in the Czech Republic called Brandys. Yesterday I posted a photo of the town square in Brandys nad Labem, but this is the train station in Brandys nad Orlici, in Pardubicky Kraj.

I've increasingly been noticing PKP (Polish Railways) electric locomotives venturing into the Czech Republic lately, although I don't know very much about them. I saw this one sitting in a siding in Pardubice, an unlikely location for a foreign locomotive to be parked since few international services originate or terminate in Pardubice.

And....this was a Class 151 that I caught in one of the platforms. I didn't change trains here, though, so I had to get it from inside my own train.