Black and Whites

This was the view as I arrived in Prague. The train that I was on included stock from many different European railways, and the coach on the end (seen here on the left) was from Deutsche Bahn.

A few minutes later, a Czech Pendolino pulled in, and I took this shot with it on the left, and my train on the right (I turned 180 degrees around).

This was an alternate shot that I took of the Ligna building that I thought looked much better in black and white, so I converted it.

I liked this shot also in black and white, so I did both versions.

I took a number of black and white landscapes on the way to Bechyne, simply because Tri-X was what I had in my camera, and not all of them were bad. This is one of my favorites.

This was maybe the most important station on the route...it actually had a passing siding!! Generally, this line was one of the crudest electric railways that I've ever been on, but there were passengers on the train, to be sure, and there is something charming about primitive branchlines, even if modernization would encourage more "normal" (non-railfan) people to ride.

Here the train is entering the wye at Bechyne Zastavka, a request station that is the last on the line before Bechyne. The wye serves two purposes, however. A locomotive that can only be easily run in one direction can be turned around on it, it's true, but the Class 113 is a unidirectional locomotive, there's a passing siding at Bechyne, and most importantly, there's a freight customer on the wye.

Here's an alternate shot on the wye, with better sky detail. It is interesting how much of a difference exposure control makes.

This is the station at Bechyne, which is surprisingly complete for such a small town. On the other hand, it is a terminus.

Here 113003-8 is running around for the trip back to Tabor.

I almost forgot this one. I took two shots while going over the bridge into Bechyne (which crosses the River Luznice), and two on the trip back to Tabor, and this was one on the way back. Of the four, I thought this one came out the best, which I think was no small feat given how bad the light was. The sky is my favorite detail, but larger versions of this shot have nice detail on the town, too.

Here my train is waiting to leave Hlavni Nadrazi on the first leg of my trip to Litomerice, mostly on advice on my Lonely Planet guidebook. I've been trying to check off the more important historic cities and attractions in the Czech Republic, one by one, and because I was starting to run out of ideas I decided to do some research. This first connection to Vsetaty would actually take me through unelectrified territory, so that's why we ended with with a Class 749 diesel.

The first stop on this trip, while not a change, was Cakovice, a suburb of Prague which I had visited by bus before, but not by train. It's a fair-sized station with a yard, that nevertheless has not yet been electrified.

#740561-6 is no longer painted for Ceske Drahy, so I assume that it is no longer an official CD unit. If I had to guess, it's most likely been bought or leased by a construction contractor.

One of the more surprising things I spotted on this trip were these wooden freight vans, or boxcars in American terminology. These went out of service in the U.S. in the 1950's, for the most part, and in most of Europe by the 1980's, but if you really scout around Eastern Europe it still is sometimes possible to find them.

Another interesting station, and a junction, on this route is Neratovice. Notice the stub end platform with the rare Class 809 railbus awaiting its next turn (the vast majority of Czech railbuses are the nearly-identical 810 Class).

Here we are departing Neratovice, heading over the bridge that crosses the River Labe.

Another relic from the past that I spotted on this trip was this old steam-era roundhouse just outside of Vsetaty.