Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: ckd

Here's a shot of the wooden interior in DPP #349.

DPP 349 is one of the older trams used for the historic tram service 91 from Vystaviste-Stresovice, having been built in about 1915, if I'm not mistaken, by Ceskomoravska Kolben-Danek, or CKD.

I know a lot less about Prague's earlier 4-wheel trams than I do about their 8-wheel trams, other than that they were built mostly by CKD (as opposed to Tatra, CKD under contract with Tatra, or in recent years Skoda), at least after electrification, and many survived into the 1970s, and many if not most of those are still in service on the historic tram service, route #91 Stresovice-Vystaviste. They're also used for charters, as here with #349 at Namesti Republiky.

I know a lot less about Prague's earlier 4-wheel trams, other than that they were mostly built by CKD, at least after electrification, and many survived into the 1970s, and many if not most of those are still in service on the historic tram service, route #91 Stresovice-Vystaviste. They're also used for charters, as here with #349 at Namesti Republiky. This is an alternate to Picture 1, taken a second or two earlier.

I took this picture solely to be a locomotive picture. I'm not convinced that it has any other merits, but railfans on Flickr will probably appreciate it if they're not from the Czech Republic. To the best of my knowledge, these Class 749 diesels don't venture out of the country, as all of the Eurocity and other international services are electric. That means that the only way to see them is to come to the Czech Republic! Class 749s were originally built as 750 and 751 Class diesels in 1964-1976 by Ceskomoravska Kolben-Danek (CKD), and then were rebuilt (again by CKD) into Class 749s in 1992-1996. They put out 1478 horsepower, and can reach a maximum operating speed of 100Km/h, although they rarely achieve this because they are usually used on slow branchline passenger services and freights.

Ceske Drahy inherited a fleet of Russian bi-level coaches from Ceskoslovenske Drahy, and these are still in service, if old (see my picture of Tynec yard). They're cramped, dirty, somewhat rundown, and very hot in the summer, though, so they're far from ideal, even if the view from the upper deck is cool. Ceske Drahy must have been thinking of this, as well as the better passenger capacity in proportion to tare, when they ordered their fleet of bi-level EMUs, Classes 471 and 971, from a consortium of CKD and Skoda in the late 1990s. The oldest of these is already 10 years old, but surprisingly, they've been kept up enough so that they still seem relatively new. The upper deck is the best part, though. :-) I took this on the way to Karlstejn.

I saw the abstraction and beauty of this shot immediately, so I took it, although I've burned the sky in here using Photoshop. The train itself is a Ceske Drahy Class 971 bi-level EMU (built by a consortium of CKD and Skoda), identical to the Class 471 in nearly everything but length, if I'm not mistaken.

Here DPP #8669, a CKD-built Tatra T6A5 tram, is awaiting departure at Namesti Miru. I like the completeness of this scene, in addition to the composition.

Here's #8669 departing a few seconds after I shot the "...At Namesti Miru" shot.

The Narodni Trida tram stop is actually not on Narodni Trida, but rather on Spalena next to Tesco's. A few meters behind me, the tracks curve west onto Narodni Trida at the corner of Spalena and Narodni Trida. The tram pictured is a CKD-built Tatra T6A5, similar to the T6A4 trams used in Portland, Oregon. They were some of the first new trams built after the fall of Communism, being built mostly in the mid-1990s.

Class 451 and 452 EMUs are a necessary evil of travelling on Ceske Drahy. They're noisy, old, dirty, slow, rough-running, heavily vandalised, and laughably out of date, but they're often the only trains working the line you need to travel, and they rarely break down, actually. Here Ceske Drahy #452 013-6, a 452 Class EMU, waits to work a local service to Benesov U Prahy.

While I was in Masarykovo Nadrazi taking my February snow pictures, I finally got around, also to photographing one of the 971 EMU's builder plates. I obviously like builder plates since they're a very reliable (usually) of knowing the straight historical facts about a piece of rolling stock, provided the plate is original, anyway. I especially like plates that are exotic, although it's debatable whether Skoda or CKD would fall into that category.

During the recent snowstorms (actually back in February), I couldn't resist taking some train photos, so I walked and rode trams around Prague to see what I could get. I took this shot in Masarykovo Nadrazi.