Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: coal

Ceramic stoves have been in use in the Czech Republic, both for heating and cooking, since at least the 17th Century. The older ones are extremely ornate, and not easily recognizable as stoves (which could be a safety hazard). However, they became much simpler in the 19th Century as they became more practical, small stoves for everybody, which is also when they were increasingly used for cooking. Usually, they've run on coal, and in spite of this you can still buy them.

This was after I got on. As I've said already, CSD kept some very old fashioned passenger car technology until comparatively late in their history, with some wooden passenger cars from the 1940's being heated by coal stoves like this one. American and British trains stopped using these with the advent of steam heating in the 1880's and 1890's, as the combination of coal stoves and wooden construction was thought to constitute a fire hazard.

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.

Nadrazi Unhost, in spite of serving a small town (village?), is a staffed station that's also nicely equipped. This is the waiting room, complete with a stove, schedules, posters, and a table for cards, eating, reading, or whatever while you wait for your train.

Here's another shot of the smoking coal stoves, only with the Nadrazi Branik station (nadrazi actually means "station" in Czech, so I'm using this incorrect terminology for the English speakers) building visible.

These vintage coaches, partly of wooden construction, would form the consist for the steam excursion to Krivoklat that I posted photos from a few months ago. I took these photos largely to illustrate their coal-fired heating stoves, as although they were built during World War II, they were about 70 years out of date even then, with these stoves for heating, as well as, usually, four-wheel wooden construction.

And...here it is, an active rail facility, Bruckenmeisterei Werkstatt, still in existence in a railyard that's been abandoned for so long that trees are growing through the tracks and the whole place has become a park. I wasn't trespassing when I took this, by the way, but rather I found a crack in the door just barely big enough for my lens, and then I had to crop this before I posted it. That train sitting there, by the way, is an old untergrundbahn, or subway/metro train, and I have no idea what it's doing here.

Very oddly, the Bruckenmeisterei shed isn't considered part of the park, and is in fact still occupied.

This is the coal bunker at Bruckenmeisterei shed, and very surprisingly it still has coal in it, although indeed everything is surprising in this yard-turned-park.

Ceskoslovenske Drahy used coal stoves for heating trains until surprisingly late in their history, and this particular passenger car wasn't built until the early 1940s, although it looks 100 years older because of all the wooden construction, and if you could see the outside, it's 4-wheel undercarriage, devoid of modern trucks or bogies. Rolling stock like this could be seen in Czech movies as late as the 1980s, although I don't know the precise year that they were pulled from regular service.