2010

This is the Rio-Antirro bridge, completed in 2004, and so therefore new to me on this trip. Since Rio and Patras are on the Peloponnese, which is not considered to be mainland Greece, this bridge supplements the ferries, although there have been other bridges in the past, including the one that I took when I visited the last time. It's also called the Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge, after the 19th-Century prime minister who originally proposed it.

Looking in the other direction from the bridge, the scene is nicer, of course, with mountains that are far enough away so that you can't see the development on them.

There are also a lot of details, both natural and otherwise, on the Rio beach, so sometimes just pointing your camera at the ground can give you something. I decided to compose this shot around that shellfish in the middle.

We also had a quick coffee at this coffeehouse, which is one of several in Rio. I don't recall the name, though.

Given the long history of Greece, and the long history (contrary to public perception) of red brick construction, this fragment of brick could be 1 week old or 2800 years old (or whenever the Greek alphabet came into use). I'm assuming this brick isn't too old, since the lettering isn't really worn off of it too badly, but on the other hand, if it's so new how did it get onto the beach? It's an interesting mystery anyway.

Here's one of my color shots of the Rio-Antirro Bridge. I like the sky detail on this one.

For some reason the lighting on the bridge in this shot is really weird, although you can see some of it on Picture 7 as well.

I found this sticker on the wall of Nadrazi Hostivar, and I still haven't figured out exactly what it's supposed to mean. It's got a date on it, as you can see, although it's hard to read. It's 22-11-2009, or November 22nd, 2009. I have no idea what the significance of that date is, or the significance of any aspect of this sticker.

I've done a number of express pans, of course, and train pans generally, but it's only a rare opportunity when I can get an express in the snow. Snow, or at least powder, inevitably magnifies the sensation of speed in a photo, or for that matter in real life.

This is my favorite of the four shots in the pan, although I've chosen to post all four.

This to me is a classic pan shot, although many people get shots like this without panning, so I'm not sure if my opinion is really correct.

In this photo the train is harder to make out, but that's kind of the point. The huge cloud of snow enveloping the train further adds to the dramatic sense of speed. The crazy thing is that few trains running through Hostivar are doing much more than 60 Km/h.

This was my train arriving to take me to Cercany. When I flew into Prague, it was already snowing, and we were almost delayed by the weather, and a few days later Prague was still under snow, giving me the chance to take a lot of snow pictures.

I'm not sure if this is the same crane that I've often seen before in Cercany, but this is the closest, best shot that I've ever managed to get of one of these, which I consider to be really weird because of the short boom. The main advantages that I had this time were that I was in daylight, and in addition I had my Nikon N80, rather than being confined to my cameraphone.

This shot more than most that I've done lately illustrates the advantages of shooting film. I like the shot as it was shot, but this lineup of the two different "Pantograph" EMU classes, plus the crane, is better for the internet, so I cropped. The result? The photo is more or less as good as before, in spite of having used 35mm color print film, which other than the 110 stuff that my Fisher-Price used to take, is more or less the bottom-of-the-range when it comes to film technology.

I happened to be closer to the Cercany crossing (which takes the line to Sazava out of town) when I took this shot, and when the new gates (installed at the end of last year) came down, I took this shot. The wait was considerable for the train, though, as in the Czech Republic it can be a few minutes (not that this means you should do something stupid at a crossing).

While I was waiting at the crossing for the train to come, I noticed #751004-3 deadheading 451004 on one of the main tracks, although it was stopped. There was also so MOW equipment on the consist further back. I couldn't tell if the 451 was headed for scrapping, repair, or simply another assignment, but I expect that many 451's will be scrapped soon with the arrival of new "City Elefant" EMU's. The 751 diesels are just as old, though, also dating back to the 1960's. #751004-3 still carries its CSD number on side, this being #T4781004. I don't know if this is for historic purposes (maybe it's is slated for preservation), or if it's simple laziness, but it's interesting anyway.

Finally, the train came, turning out to be a Class 810 railbus, trailed by an 010 Class 4-wheel coach.