Prague Trains
 

Two short visits to Praha Hlavni Nadrazi ststion on the occasion of my 65th birthday. :)

Video part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOdU8hCJI0

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-CycU1NILM

I'd just like to say...

MORE MORE!!!

Great films Alan, I really enjoyed watching them. I reckon you saw more locos in those two visits than I get to see in a year, apart from preserved lines. I loved the centre cab electrics, and the little B-B (?) centre cab diesel was a treat as well. :)

Yes, I agree. Thanks Alan.
With all that variety it's no wonder that more and more British enthusiasts are visiting mainland Europe.

Thanks Trev. This was our first visit to Prague and we highly recommend the city, it is absolutely beautiful! The activity at the station was almost continuous so the only problem was being in the right places to film all the trains!

Another great think about the Czech Republic is the excellent beer. ;)

I couldn't agree more even though I have virtually no interest in the modern scene personally. However, I follow the pictorial and scripted meanderings of a Dutch blog several times per week and am amazed at the variety of motive power and colour that appears there and within such a small country. But railways (and canals) are integral to that country and so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

the drawback for non-Dutch viewers is that the text is entirely in Dutch and so much of the considerable wry humour would be lost. It can be very funny indeed particularly when the author twists his knives in the backs of state paranoia (familiar?) and general inefficiency. What should amaze British viewers is that NS which has a pretty poor record of preservation seems to be very lax when it comes to enthusiasts specials comprising DMUs and EMUs to tootle around the countryside with seemingly gay abandon.

And then we add to the mix Nico's (the author of the blog) alleged fetish for bums and boobs which can also provide some amusement.

http://www.nicospilt.com/nieuw.htm

He has some great archive railways and bus shots on show much of the time as well.

Mike

Thanks John. I have to say that although I do watch, and photograph trains here, the highlights for me are our visits abroad, where I usually take stills and my wife does the video. :)

Mike, I took a look at the site - what a variety! Pity I cannot speak the language (although the pictures of ladies need no translation). ;)

Alan,

Great fun isn't it? Have you checked out his home page . . . .
http://www.nicospilt.com/index3.html ???

That's the English language version but it's also the only English in the site. Note that the site is written as frames and that the left side of the display scrolls independently of the rest. It's been invaluable to me in terms of providing background data on European locomotives and also, occasionally, with locations. I have some negs of a handsome 2-8-2 tender loco type and simply had no idea what it was as the shots were indentifiably taken in Austria but the locos clearly aren't Austrian. Nico came up with the answer in the form of Slovenia. The loco type is featured on the Slovenian railway museum's pages and in English as well. Try this link for that loco type: http://www.burger.si/MuzejiInGalerij...va_06-018.html

Mike

Mike, we were in the Slovenia Railway Museum in Ljubljana in July this year. 06-018 is currently under repair in the roundhouse.

http://images.fotopic.net/ypoy60.jpg

The museum is amazing, but is not publicised, even on the station! We had to ask some locals for directions. The chap in charge actually unlocked the museum for us! It is well worth a visit, and definitely should be widely publicised, I am sure the tour operators could take coach parties there. But it is owned by SZ and is not a priority for them.

By the way, we had a wonderful 6-hour trip behind another of the Museum's locos. Kreigslok 33-037, riding in 4-wheel coaches!

http://images.fotopic.net/yplvyr.jpg

Rest of our Slovenia trip is here http://alansgallery.fotopic.net/c1321519.html

Alan,

It was at least a year ago that Nico told me about the SŽ site and I'm pretty sure that he mentioned that it was an unintentionally well-kept secret. What amazes me is that someone has gone to the trouble of creating a superb web site and multilingual t'boot!

The negs in my collection were all taken at Spielfeld Strass identified by the station's name boards and the members of the 06 class featured are 008, 014 and 015.

I should point out that those negs were given to me virtually devoid of documentation and so locations/dates are the results of detective work with limited success. It'll be interesting to see what sort of documentary support comes forth when i get onto the European tram negatives of which there are thousands awaiting scanning.

Mike