Old Flickr Rail Photos

Sidliste Repy is a Communist-era housing project consisting of "Panelak" apartment blocks built to standard designs. Although many other Sidliste projects have been fully renovated and modernized, Republiky is still a work in progress, and still has a great deal of its Communist-era grime. Here I've taken a picture of the tram terminus, where arriving passengers get off the tram before it goes onto the turning loop.

Tatra T3 #6777 is very noticable for Prague in that it's a black tram. I'm not sure if there are any others in the DPP fleet that look quite like it. Usually, it's covered in advertising, and here you can see some posters on the side. I took this on the turning loop at the Sidliste Repy tram terminus.

Bruselska, both the street and the tram stop in this picture, is only served by two tram routes, 6 and 11, at least under normal scheduling. Occassionally, though, it's used as a detour for 22 and 23. I was lucky enough to get this shot of two T3s passing in the sun.

Namesti I.P. Pavlova (not actually visible in this photo) has two tram stops, a Metro Station (just down the steps in the center and left of this photo), and a bus stop (way back on the left, two blocks away, around the corner), but it's just as often a place where you change trams or modes as it is equipped so well for the locals' use.

I'm roughly certain that this was taken in 1997, although it could have been late 1996. One way or the other, this locomotive doesn't show up on many CP rosters, and the reason is that it is a former D&H locomotive, which means that it got bounced around quite a lot. It wasn't even originally D&H, as the D&H bought it from Lehigh Valley in 1976 (according to what I could find online. It looks, also, very old, but actually it's not an original GP38, but a GP38-2, albeit one from 1972.

I took this in the summer of 1997, but now I don't remember which private car this was. The lettering on it is too hard to read in this scan, too, so any help in identifying it would be welcome. :-)

These 810 Class railbuses are everywhere in the Czech Republic, or at least I've seen them everywhere. They're not new, either, as they first entered production in 1973, and were built until 1984, always by Vagonka Tatra Studenka a name that is usually abbreviated Stud. The 810s are diesel-hydromechanical, like most railbuses, and are very quick to start and stop, although their maximum operating speed is only 80Km/h (about 50 m.p.h.). That last thing doesn't matter, though, as they're mostly used for local services on very primitive branchlines where the speed limit is usually closer to 40Km/h. Their only real vice, if you assume that you want a railbus for moving small numbers of people in local services, is that like most railbuses, 810s are noisy and not particularly smooth, although they're probably not as bad as the ex-BR Class 144 Pacers used in Britain.

The 1998 NRHS Convention was based in Syracuse, New York, and hosted by the Central New York Chapter. Nevertheless, because of Syracuse's close proximity to Utica, the Utica & Mohawk Valley Chapter also played a key role, along with the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society (ARPS). The biggest event was, in my opinion, the re-opening of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad from Utica-Thendara, which had only been run once before since restoration, in 1997, when it was run for volunteers and dignitaries (the railroad is run completely by volunteers from the ARPS and NRHS). This was on the way back at Nelson Lake, a station that's privately owned, and while on the employee timetable, no longer an active station.

This was a very lucky shot, although not perfect. I had gotten on the train, and was regretting the fact that I didn't have the chance to catch this earlier, when it went by on the mainline when I was in the wrong part of Dresden to get a good angle on it (I only saw and heard the exhaust through the trees). Much to my amazement, my camera was already in my hands, and there it was, moving slowly enough for me to get this shot!!! It's an old DRG Class 50 2-10-0, repainted for DB, as after World War II DB didn't get rid of steam until 1978, and even after that the DR kept it, so today a lot of it has been preserved.

I first rode behind a DB 101 Class electric in 1998, on an Intercity service from Emmerich to Koln. That was a very memorable trip, and since then I've ridden behind a 101 on other occasions as well. They're very fast (for a locomotive as opposed to a trainset) being able to hit 220Km/h with little effort, although officially they only do 200Km/h in service with their 10-12 car Intercities, very powerful (the Class 103 is the only large German electric class to ever beat it), and just...well...good looking. The bright cherry red that DB uses for its Intercity equipment nowadays suits them especially well. Therefore, I figure I should use any excuse to put a picture of a 101 on my website, so here it is. I took this is Dresden Hauptbahnhof in 2005, where I was catching a Eurocity service to Prague. They cut the 101 off in Bad Schandau or Decin, if I'm not mistaken, replacing it with a CD Class 363.

This was on a guided tour of Berea Tower, one of Conrail's last signal towers, during its last days of operation. We saw a tremendous density of traffic by American standards, but of course that was understandable given the rail hub that the Cleveland area is. That is, indeed, why Berea survived for so long. This Conrail freight approaching us is obviously being pulled by EMD SD50s or SD60s, but the scan is unfortunately too blurry to see the numbers and confirm exactly.

This would have been one of my first ever rail-oriented black and whites, as this is not merely a black and white scan, but a black and white scan of a photo shot with Tri-X 400. I took this at the headquarters of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad in Thendara, NY, as you'll notice from the title, and I in fact I was on their EMD SW1 #705. This photo was taken so long ago that I still worked there at the time, so getting a cab ride was no problem. This whole yard, last I knew, has since been renovated, so this end of the yard is mostly paved over with the rails embedded in the pavement as on tram lines. It's obviously a lot cleaner and safer that way, but this older dirt and ballast roadbed is more historically accurate for the station.

Here's the glass roof of the Masarykovo station canopy, similar to many other stations, even if it isn't the grandest.

I like the way the sun was illuminating the bricks in this shot, so I figured I would compose it with the train and the platform for good measure. The main challenge was waiting for passengers to stop walking by. I also have had to burn this one in a bit.

I saw the abstraction and beauty of this shot immediately, so I took it, although I've burned the sky in here using Photoshop. The train itself is a Ceske Drahy Class 971 bi-level EMU (built by a consortium of CKD and Skoda), identical to the Class 471 in nearly everything but length, if I'm not mistaken.

I call this a "canopy" for want of a better word. I'm really not clear on what else I could call it. It's not a trainshed, in the traditional sense, because the trains pull up to a waiting area covered by it, but don't go under it. It's also too lightly constructed to really be considered completely a part of the Masarykovo station building, and indeed it isn't original, if you look at old prints from the 1840s.

#1361 is a V43 Class electric, which are quite common on services in and out of Keleti, even if they are indeed quite old at this point. Note that this photo has been retouched, if it looks weird.

The Budapest Funicular Railway is very short, as its only purpose is to help lazy people get to the Royal Castle. It nevertheless provides an interesting contrast to the Prague Funicular, as it has two tracks, with no need for a passing siding.