Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Class 471

This was another service operating by a Class 471 "City Elefant" EMU, this time entirely in the new blue livery. This service, while I have been unable to identify it, was almost certainly a local service to either Strancice, or Benesov via Strancice.

This was a second shot of the City Elefant arrival, illustrating that this was actually a two-unit lashup of three bi-level coaches, for a total of six. The rear trainset still has the original red, white, and blue City Elefant livery, which has been replaced by the more generic two-tone blue used on local electric trains on Ceske Drahy. Starting from about 2010, Ceske Drahy actually began using the two-tone blue not only on the City Elefant, but on all passenger stock, even the express stock, although this repainting project didn't affect the majority of stock until about 2013. By 2015, it was starting to become rare to see the older liveries.

This was another shot I took from Spanelska, overlooking the south/west throat of Hlavni Nadrazi. This Class 471 "City Elefant" EMU was actually arriving with a local service (although I don't know which one), rather than departing. These are obviously bi-level units, and have largely been used to replace the Communist-era EMU's like the Class 451 and 452 "Pantograph" or "City Frog" units. By 2015, there were few, if any, Communist-era units left, and by 2018 they were gone except for on excursions. Also, by 2015, they generally only worked services out of platforms 1-4, but that was only incidental. Part of the reason was that they had recently been replaced on the locals to Strancice and Benesov (via Strancice) out of platform 7.

This was the Class 471 "City Elefant" EMU that took me back to Prague. Having said this, the photo is too blurred to get the road number.

Here's a northbound City Elefant operating Linka S9 again. This was the same day as the previous two shots. This would normally be a shot where the number would be easily visible, but the shot blurred, so it isn't.

When I took this in Mnichovice, it was still January, so there was still snow on the ground. That's a City Elefant in original livery departing to the south with a Benesov service, operating PID Linka S9.

I don't have the number of this EMU, but it's definitely a Ceske Drahy Class 471, or "City Elefant." This viaduct is one of several Karlin has had over the years, and is one of the older ones surviving. Here it crosses Sokolovska on the way to Holesovice in the north of the city.

I'm not sure why I opted to keep this shot. It's a bit too blurry to fully satisfy me, but I think the combination of the trainshed and the City Elefant, even if I can't read the number, combined with the passengers on the left, makes for a nice scene. This was as I was waiting for my train to Brno.

I think the lighting in this shot, looking north, is better.

Most of the services when I first visited Cernosice five years ago were Class 451 and 452 "Pantograph" EMU's, but most of the services have now been upgraded to Class 471 "City Elephant" EMU's, which are are technically called "City Elefant" EMU's to make the name more phonetic to Czech speakers.

Later during the Slapy trip, we had to stop at this crossing. Regrettably, I don't remember where this was, as I consider this one of my favorite train photos this year. The location is made especially mysterious by the fact that the nearest electrified line to Slapy is the Prague-Ceske Budejovice mainline, which doesn't have too many City Elephants running on it yet.

Here's the train that I took home. Worth noting in this photo is the ad on the side of the train, for a movie, Gympl, which glorifies grafitti vandals who trash trains. It's typical of the kinds of self-defeating ads that public transport services accept, and begs the question once again of why they're tolerated.

I shot most of my Kutna Hora pictures on Ektachrome, and from the look of how grainy these shots are, grainier than any slides I've ever done, I'm assuming it was Elite 400, although I seem to remember it being 200. I really doubt that 200 could look this bad, though, at least at full resolution. Oddly, the main reason I'm not posting more of these is that most of them are going to end up in an NRHS slide show sooner or later. They're the main shots I have of this trip, so I'm hoping that the story and the subject matter will be more important than resolution....

This was, unless I'm mistaken, the start of my Kutna Hora trip, although I note that the number on this Class 471 "City Elephant" EMU doesn't match the one from my arrival photo. I don't remember which one I actually took, or if it was a twin set.