Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Class 130

This was the first serious video (of more than a few seconds) that I shot of the CD system after New Year's. This was on April 29th, and the weather was already improving, although overall the summer was mild until late August, when it finally started getting hot. This video includes a Class 451 "Pantograph" EMU, and a Class 130 electric locomotive working as a pusher on a freight. Class 130's used to be a little bit rare in Prague, but I've been seeing a lot of them on freight trains lately. They look like 1950's locomotives, but they were actually all built in 1977 by Skoda. They each have 2736 horsepower (2040Kw), and a maximum speed of 100Km/h, which may explain why they aren't used much on passenger trains anymore.

As I said earlier, there are a surprising number of older locomotives in freight service around Prague nowadays. Here 130006-0, built in the 1970's (with a car body design based on earlier Skoda electrics from the 1950's), works a container train through Hostivar.

This actually wasn't an all-autorack train, but a manifest with a lot of autoracks in it. I really took this shot for the locomotive, though, even if the cameraphone is too low resolution to get the number. I've been really surprised at the extent to which older locomotives have been kept running by the new CD Cargo business segment, and Hostivar isn't a bad place to see them in action. I've even seen Class 120 and 122 electrics from the 1950's.

Here you can get a better view of the autoracks. Surprisingly, in spite of rampant grafitti on Ceske Drahy, no attempt has been made to introduce modern auto carriers with sides and rooves. In the United States, these old style autoracks haven't been seen since the 1970's.

Here's my second shot of the Class 130, as it continued on by at about 60Km/h (I think).

The 1950's-era Czech electrics are gradually being phased out, with more in scrap lines everyday, but some of the later classes to be built in the same rounded style, which were built well into the 1970's, continue to survive. Again, the bad cameraphone resolution prevents me from reading the number of this one, but you can tell it's a Class 130 from the boxy blister on the top of it (I'm not sure for what, as I don't have a proper manual for these). It's true that ex-CSD Class 125's have this too, but all of them are now in service on ZSSK in Slovakia, not CD. Note also the CD Cargo logo on this Class 130, marking it at least in theory as a freight unit.