I forgot to post this morning so I'll post it now: I started the day with breakfast at the best kept secret at Praha Hln station: the cafe Fantova Karvana, underneath the dome of the original entrance to the station. Beautiful, light, airy; not things you could say about the airless, permanently-humid modern complex that sits beneath it
I don't know if my arse will ever recover from spending an hour and a half on that train with that track... anyway train #19, my last for today, is an electric loco hauled set - thank god, it's been DMUs all day - from Kralupy nad Vltavou back to Prague Hln. Photos are on my camera, check back tomorrow and I'll edit this post.
An oddity seen today at Zatec... there is a group of OCS isolators controlling the 3kV power to the station electrical section in the usual European practice, just beyond the platform. The gate was open and I was able to walk right up to them. No padlock fitted to the operating handle! Literally anyone could operate these with the OCS live, causing a massive flashover and operational chaos. And the icing on the cake is the isolator number: are they having a windup?
The first train of day 3 of my trip, train #20 is the 0805 from Prague Hln to Beroun. I'm following yesterday's route, for reasons that will become clear later. I was expecting a double decker as per yesterday but very pleased to see this loco hauled set instead. A very pleasant journey talking to a chap from Plzen about holidays, politics and everything in between.
So while I'm on the train I'll talk about yesterday's trip to the Czech Railway Museum at Luzna u Rakovnika. Like other central European rail museums, this is a working museum, not a sanitised environment. You can walk around the yard and across the tracks. There are so many amazing locos to see here.
This fine looking electric locomotive in particular caught my eye. A superb example of 1950s(?) design. Some very clever mechanisms under the frames to transfer tractive effort from the wheels to the buffer beam.
They even have their own family of feral cats, living in one of the loco inspection pits under a loco. Very wisely they weren't interested in saying hello.
And it goes without saying that I couldn't leave without visiting the restaurant in an old Czech @diningcar. Goulash and beer, what could be more Czech?
@diningcar Anyway, back to today. Train #22 is yet another two car DMU forming the 1009 from Rakovnik to Luzna u Rakovnika. Yes, I'm back here again! I wonder why? 🤔
OH MY. Huge thanks to @moritz for the tipoff, train #23 is a special from Luzna u Rakovnika to Chomutov. It's this diesel beast that I saw being prepped yesterday, been wanting one of these since I arrived. Can anyone advise on the loco type? Left my book at home in the interest of weight-saving.
Selfie, ECAmazingly the train is 3/4 empty. Not widely known about, not that big a deal here, or just a function of being a weekday? In the UK this would be packed out
On arrival at Chomutov, the whole train reverses into the Railway depository of the National Technical Museum, where we alight for a visit around the exhibits.
Train #24 is the 1453 from Chomutov to Klášterec nad OhÅ™Ã. A nice dual voltage Skoda, with a changeover from 3kV DC to 25kV AC at Kadan. Getting on this was a spontaneous decision, based on traction - a distinct advantage of the Czech system, where you don't have to pick a platform to stand on.
