Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: City Elefant

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 The rear trainset still has the original red, white, and blue City Elefant livery, which has been replaced by the more generic two-tone blue used on local electric trains on Ceske Drahy.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.

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.

Here's an alternate shot of the City Elefant.

In January, a lot of City Elefants were still working the Praha Hlavni Nadrazi-Benesov u Prahy locals, although I haven't seen them much lately.

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.