Old Flickr Rail Photos

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. :-)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wagons-Lits are better known for providing sleepers and other luxury passenger equipment for the Orient Express, but indeed they do provide a full sleeper service to many carriers. RZD, the Russian Railway, is a major customer, and their sleeper trains, equipped with Wagons-Lits stock, connect Moscow and St. Petersburg to many Eastern and Central European cities such as Prague, Budapest, Karlovy Vary, and of course Berlin, seen here.

Wagons-Lits are better known for providing sleepers and other luxury passenger equipment for the Orient Express, but indeed they do provide a full sleeper service to many carriers. RZD, the Russian Railway, is a major customer, and their sleeper trains, equipped with Wagons-Lits stock, connect Moscow and St. Petersburg to many Eastern and Central European cities such as Prague, Budapest, Karlovy Vary, and of course Berlin, seen here. This is a fuller, but less sharp, alternate of Picture 1.

I've taken photos of car headlight streaks many times, but this is my first attempt with a train. This is one of several shots that I tried, being the best of the batch.

The Praha-Uhrineves rail passenger station is currently undergoing a renovation as part of a larger corridor enhancement programme for the Prague-Ceske Budejovice/Wein route, and it's one of the few stations which hasn't been trashed by vandals yet. One would have to hope that adequate security is provided so that it stays looking like this for as long as possible, so that ticket and tax money isn't wasted.

This is, in actual fact, only a model. It's one of the most accurate model locomotives I've ever seen, and the only notable flaw I can see with it is that the "soot" around the chimney (smokestack) just looks like a finger smudge or spilled model cement. I think it was in O Scale, but I'm not sure since I don't remember, and in any case the model is far too good to identify as one scale or another based solely on a photograph.

This is my first photo on Flickr taken from a train cab while the train was in motion, and my only shot ever taken from a moving train while I was in the driver's seat. The way I got away with this, as I don't have a license, was that I wasn't actually driving. Although all DLR trains can be driven manually, they rarely are, instead being run driverless using a version of Automatic Train Operation. Crews are then limited to a few ticket inspectors and station staff who catch fare dodgers and protect the public's safety. The driver's controls are locked up under a heavy cover while not in use, and the driver's seat is open to anyone...like me, which gives people like me a chance to get photos like this one.

Here's a shot that I actually planned in advance, knowing that "Green Arrow" was working the Scarborough Express on the day in question. The yellow tint to everything is from the sun.

This may raise the eyebrows of some British trainspotters, who are constantly hunting this one-of-a-kind (and quite old, being built by British Railways Engineering in 1987) experimental electric, yet never finding it. The well-informed know that it's usually at Doncaster, working as a stationary power unit rather than a locomotive, although I once spotted it working a service in King's Cross back in 1999. Here it wasn't doing anything, being instead a display during the Doncaster 150 celebrations. The other locomotives around it are interesting, too, even if they're far less rare.

When I visited, Minneapolis was just putting the finishing touches on a controversial light rail project, called the "Hiawatha Line" after the famous steam-era express trains, and I was lucky enough to see them testing one of the new trams. These aren't particularly unconventional as modern trams go, except for that they have train horns and bells instead of traditional tram bells, making them extremely noisy. This may have had something to do with Metro Transit classifying them as "trains" rather than trams or trollies, even though they operate in the street and perform in every concievable way like most other modern trams. I haven't found out whether this has elicited complaints, improved safety, or both, but I do know that most of the controversy was unrelated to noise. Rather, the main argument against the project was that it didn't go anywhere locals wanted to go, instead providing a link only from Nicollet Mall (seen here) to the Mall of America. The line has since been extended further north to the Warehouse District, however, which would be to the rear of this photo (if I'm wrong on either of these points please correct me). In spite of the initial arguments against the project, however, this year Metro Transit reported their highest ridership on all modes in 22 years, with 73.8 million riders for 2006, blowing past their target of 71 million. The Hiawatha line only accounted for 9.4 million of these, but if you consider that initially it was predicted no one would ride, this could actually be called quite a success.

I took this during a photo runby while riding an NRHS Convention Special from Syracuse to Chanango Forks, New York in 1998. We never made it all the way to Binghamton, as the excursion ran so late that we lost our path, but a good time was had by all. Regrettably, I can't remember exactly where this runby was, so any info from other attendees would be welcome (it was probably the one at Tully depicted in another one of my photos on my website www.jonsearlesphoto.co.nr).

Here's ex-GWR #5972 "Olton Hall" a.k.a. "Hogwarts Castle" pulling "The Wizard Express" into York after a run to Scarborough, taking advantage of the Harry Potter craze for all it's worth. In actual fact, not only is the story pure fantasy, but so is the paint scheme and name on "Olton Hall!" It's a Great Western Hall Class, not a Castle Class (Castles were 4-cylinder, while Halls were 2), and Great Western painted their locomotives Brunswick Green, not red!! Oh well, one would have to assume that everyone enjoyed themselves on this particular day.