2007

Whoops!! I forgot these two. Enjoy. :-)

Here's another one.

Hrad Krivoklat was built during the 12th Century, used as a prison during the 19th Century, used as a family castle from the 19th Century until 1929, and today it's a tourist attraction. The village of Krivoklat is more common, but still pleasant. I was there mainly because of a steam train excursion that I was on over the Easter holidays.

I took this because I liked the way the tower on the castle composed the shot.

Here's the historical marker on Hrad Krivoklat.

Sundials mounted on the sides of buildings are quite common in the Czech Republic, and I've seen them in Germany, too. This one is in Hrad Krivoklat in Krivoklat, in the Czech Republic.

This is one of my best photos of Hrad Krivoklat, although I can't decide whether I really like it or not. It would have been nicer if we had had nice weather, or maybe not....

Here's another shot of Hrad Krivoklat through the trees at the Krivoklat train station.

I took this shot while waiting for a steam excursion to take me back to Prague from Krivoklat. This is a Ceske Drahy Class 810 Railbus, very common on branchlines, but nothing spectacular. It probably wouldn't be unfair to compare it to the "Pacer" railbuses used in the UK, actually, except for that 810s are lower and wider, if I'm not mistaken.

Here's our train back to Prague, although in reality it's passing through Krivoklat on the way to pick up our train. In the end the train was closer to 42 cars, rather than 3!! That's a record for my train travels, actually. The locomotive, ex-CSD 498.022 is a Ceskoslovenske Drahy Class 498 4-8-2, the same class as 498.106, "Albatros," which set a Czech speed record for steam locomotives at 162Km/h in 1964.

This shot gives an impression of the immense size of our train. You actually can't see it all here, as three cars are behind me, and many more are hidden around the curve up ahead. All that you can see of 498.022 is the water vapor plume.

Here's the rear end of our train, looking around the curve and into the tunnel in the opposite direction, even further away from Prague than Krivoklat. :-)

Ceskoslovenske Drahy used coal stoves for heating trains until surprisingly late in their history, and this particular passenger car wasn't built until the early 1940s, although it looks 100 years older because of all the wooden construction, and if you could see the outside, it's 4-wheel undercarriage, devoid of modern trucks or bogies. Rolling stock like this could be seen in Czech movies as late as the 1980s, although I don't know the precise year that they were pulled from regular service.

Here's another shot that I took of 498.022 in Beroun, on the way back to Prague. Trains from Krivoklat to Prague have to be turned here, as the track layout forms a wye, so here 498.022 was being turned.

I saw this coming, and took the shot. The trams blurred somewhat, though, so I'm not 100% certain of all the numbers.

This is a so-so pan shot that I took of a T3 in Namesti Bratri Synku. It's not perfect, of course, since the tram itself blurred slightly, and I got a bad light leak down the middle, but it's a Lomo so I figured I'd post it to Flickr to see what people think. :-)

This one's got better clouds, better light, some tram, some bridge, and some castle. What the ...., it's a Lomo of a tram. :-)

Here's a variation on Picture 1 taken a little further back.