2012

This is the entrance to the castle keep, such as it is.

If you circle the parapet, you eventually find 18th-Century fortifications with cannon, as well as some modern-day restaurants. This view is looking at the keep, though, with the cannon out of the frame behind and to the right, and the restaurants out of the frame to the left.

Here is one of the artillery pieces, although I don't know if it's original.

Around the same time that DPP in Prague were receiving delivery of Skoda 14t trams, another variant called the 13t was being delivered to Brno. This is #1928.

ZSSK are, for the moment, the national railway of Slovakia. Many of their trains, with their locomotives, still venture into the Czech Republic, especially on Eurocity services. This one would take me back to Prague, with Class 350 electric #350020-4 on the point.

This is the Golden Angel, or Zlaty Andel, mural that lends its name to the Andel neighborhood of Prague, which in turn is part of Smichov. The story of this mural is complicated, but it was preserved when the neighborhood was being rebuilt, and placed back in its place on a new building that now houses several book stores, restaurants, other shops, and offices. A more complete history, in Czech, is in my next post.

This is the historical marker for the Zlaty Andel.

This photo is very blurred, but I figured it conveyed the hardcore punk scene quite well, if only in the emotional sense. I took this at Cafe na pul Cesty, and although you can't recognize them, the band were Caroline.

This was my first photo of Ruzyne Airport after its name change to Vaclav Havel soon after the former president's death in 2011. You can just barely see the changed lettering on Terminal 2. Correct me if I'm wrong on the Terminal, but I could not have been in Terminal 1 as my first flight wouldn't be out of the Schengen area.

This is two flights later, in Toronto Lester B. Pearson Airport, where I was stranded. Say what you will about Amtrak, but their delays are generally limited to about 16 hours. Airlines will delay you for days. In this case, though, I got my first look at Toronto airport's "Link" air train, seen here. These trains are cable-operated (ultimately electric, I'm assuming) and driverless, and seem to use unconventional rails, albeit two of them, meaning that this isn't a true monorail. The right of way is described by Wikipedia as an "Elevated Steel Tube Truss." The system was built by DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car in 2006, and the system's route length is only 1.47Km. The speed limit is 43.2 Km/h, which doesn't actually matter since it isn't human-operated. Wikipedia alleges as of this writing that the system is currently shut down to make it easier to build the Union Pearson Express, a conventional heavy rail link with Toronto Union Station.

I'm posting this shot mostly for later use. These are some of the add-ons that I have for Microsoft Train Simulator, all of which I love. Still, I would like to relocate some of my others for the Northeast Corridor, which were mostly freeware. Unfortunately, with the aging of the original MSTS, I'm not sure of their availability or compatibility, although these payware packs, being old, are perfectly fine.

This is the Agway store in Clinton, NY. Agway are a chain of farm supply stores, so this one isn't very remarkable, except for what you notice if you look more carefully. The whole building looks like a railroad station or freight house, and this is untrue but close. Prior to 1957, the parking lot was a yard for the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad, or O&W, and this building was owned by a freight customer. Naturally, it was built to hug the line for easy delivery and/or transshipment, like most railroad customers' buildings, and for that matter most if not all freight houses. Naturally, in the old days the O&W would have used very large snowplows.

This is Syracuse Hancock International Airport, but I took this photo to try and capture the Air Canada Beechcraft 1900 in the background, which I knew would be working my flight. These are the smallest commercial aircraft (although not the smallest aircraft overall) that I've ever flown on. The aircraft in the foreground is, if I'm not mistaken, a American Airlines Canadair RJ700.

I don't usually drink Canadian beer, but this was an exception, as I was in Canada. I've always been surprised by the lack of head on this one. I don't know if that's typical for Molson Canadian.

This is Frankfurt am Main airport, the main, literally, airport for Frankfurt, Germany. I don't know if that Boeing 747 is a 400 or an 8I, but Lufthansa were the launch customer for the 8I, and the next time I was in Frankfurt there were quite a lot of them already. This is in spite of the fact that Lufthansa have also bought a fleet of Airbus A380's. Many newspapers lately have referred to the "aging" 747-8I, and claiming that Boeing will soon discontinue them. However, as journalists often don't do their homework, they ignore that if a platform is the basis for what is "aging," then the 737, never criticized by them, is even more "aging," having been introduced two years earlier, in 1968. The 737-900 and the 747-8I variants of these aircraft, however, are arguably state-of-the-art, and much more reliable than the much touted (but just as criticized) 787-800. Boeing have slowed 747 production, which may make short-term business sense, but it seems like they should be working on fixing the 787-800, rather than releasing the new 787-900 before the older one is ready, or pouring money into the 797, which hasn't even flown yet (in spite of some hoax photographs). Officially, in fact, the 797 is still the "7x7," as it isn't even an official catalog item yet.

As usual, I switched to rail transport as soon as I got back to Europe, and ceased to have any problems. This is the departure from Praha Hlavni Nadrazi on EN456, the "Phoenix," which is operated jointly by Ceske Drahy, Deutsche Bahn, and Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The train terminates in Amsterdam Centraal, but I would change in Koln.

These are the couchette accomodations on DB. I don't remember if I had a first class ticket, but the linen would suggest that. Unfortunately, by the time I reserve the first class tickets are often the only ones left. Luckily, they're only marginally more expensive than standard class, in sharp contrast to first class airline tickets.

I woke up during the switching move in Berlin Ostbahnhof, and took some cameraphone shots. I was surprised to see a DMU in service so late a night, although it may have been on a training run. It's also possible that there really are 24-hour local services into Ostbahnhof, but generally local services throughout Europe are cut back during the night to accomodate freight and MOW trains. I'm not sure of the class, but it appears to be a 646. At first I thought that it was an EMU, since we were in electrified territory, but none of the EMU photos on the European Railway Server seem to match it.