Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: czech

The yards and grounds surrounding Praha Hlavni Nadrazi are called "Sherwood Forest" by locals, referring to the near total anarchy there. The police are everywhere, but that doesn't reduce the public urination and defecation, the rampant vandalism, assault, robbery, and other much more awful crimes committed there, not to mention the unwillingness of any of the vagrants there to be even moderately sanitary. The whole station is slated for a rebuilding, which is already in its beginning stages, although there is still so much vandalism that I'm not sure what the point is. Anything built will be immediately trashed before it's even completed. There are also a lot of abandoned outbuildings in the yard, like this one. I shot this from a train waiting to depart.

It's a shame, in a way, that I was shooting my cross-processed roll when I took this photo, as the locomotive is quite rare nowadays. Built 1957-1960 by Skoda, these are some of the oldest locomotives still in regular service on Ceske Drahy, and in this case the loco was standing in, with a rake of Russian bi-levels, for a Class 451 or 452 EMU on a service to Benesov U Prahy.

I'm pretty sure this was a coach based on a Class 810 railbus, rather than a real railbus. Some of these are powered railbuses, while some are pulled by small diesel locomotives or by 810s. They're used on branchlines, mainly, although I've ridden in an 810 at up to 80Km/h on the Decin-Prague mainline before.

Class 111 electric locomotives are used a lot in Ceske Drahy stations for switching coaching stock, but I have occassionally seen them on locals and freights. This one had just brought in a cut of coaches that would be ultimately pulled by a 363 electric.

Class 363 electric locomotives work passenger and freight trains on all of the electrified mainlines in the Czech Republic, and I've of course posted photos of them before. This one was sitting on one of the outer sidings of Praha Hlavni Nadrazi waiting to pull an express to Ceske Budejovice, which was being made up by #111011-9, which I've already posted a photo of. Note that 363127-2 is painted in an advertising livery instead of the standard Ceske Drahy green and yellow.

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.

Cercany is so busy it's actually possible to line up an EMU, a diesel-hauled freight, and a railbus all at once if you're careful and lucky enough. :-)

Here's...yet another Class 452 shot!! #452014-4 is waiting in this picture to work a service Praha Hlavni Nadrazi-Benesov U Prahy.

This is one of the express trains for Ceske Budejovice, and on this particular day (January 26th, 2007) it looked like it was all set to be packed to standing room only with skiiers, in spite of having over 10 cars on.

Here's a shot of train #R641 for Ceske Budejovice, waiting for it's locomotive at Praha Hlavni Nadrazi. There are so many coaches on to accomodate unexpected ski traffic that you can't see to the end!!!

I took this just as the sun was finally coming out after several days of snow and storms. I liked the way the buildings were illuminated.

Although the station has too many tracks for it to cover all of them, the inner platforms of Hlavni Nadrazi have a fair-sized train shed.

This is one of a number of snow photos I've taken in Cercany, this one being from the latest batch taken at the beginning of February.

I had walked the entire length of the Zelecnicni Most from east to west, had seen no trains whatsoever, and was just turning back when I got lucky and caught this. Okay, so it's a railbus and not a proper train, but I was still happy to get it.

I just saw this photo and decided that it was perfect. My only regret was that I was carrying my Lomo and not my Ikoflex!! :-)