Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Cesky Drahy

Here's another shot of the canopies at Nadrazi Klatovy, showing the rounded ends.

A woman who I was travelling with pointed out this station to me as a bit of a landmark in railway architecture. It was built after World War II, although I think it bears more of a resemblance to stations built in the 1930's. The city itself, for many years known by its German name of Klattau, has long been home to some of the richest Czechs, being originally built with the profits from nearby gold mines in the 14th Century. In more recent decades it has been a resort town, partly for skiing. The town, like most of its era, also has a castle, which now features an art gallery.

Eurocity services between Prague and Munich are at least partly contracted out to Arriva at the moment. Given Arriva's history in Britain, this surprises me, although we weren't too horribly late into Munich in the end, just late. Some of this was Ceske Drahy's fault (or rather the fault of the Czech track authority), though, as most of the delays happened in Plzensky Kraj. The ALEX coaches include many ex-CD coaches like this one, mildly rebuilt with new seats.

Here's the second shot of the 810 and its coach on the crossing.

This shot more than most that I've done lately illustrates the advantages of shooting film. I like the shot as it was shot, but this lineup of the two different "Pantograph" EMU classes, plus the crane, is better for the internet, so I cropped. The result? The photo is more or less as good as before, in spite of having used 35mm color print film, which other than the 110 stuff that my Fisher-Price used to take, is more or less the bottom-of-the-range when it comes to film technology.

I'm not sure if this is the same crane that I've often seen before in Cercany, but this is the closest, best shot that I've ever managed to get of one of these, which I consider to be really weird because of the short boom. The main advantages that I had this time were that I was in daylight, and in addition I had my Nikon N80, rather than being confined to my cameraphone.

Finally, the train came, turning out to be a Class 810 railbus, trailed by an 010 Class 4-wheel coach.

And, finally, to conclude the sequence, here are the gates raising.

While I was waiting at the crossing for the train to come, I noticed #751004-3 deadheading 451004 on one of the main tracks, although it was stopped. There was also so MOW equipment on the consist further back. I couldn't tell if the 451 was headed for scrapping, repair, or simply another assignment, but I expect that many 451's will be scrapped soon with the arrival of new "City Elefant" EMU's. The 751 diesels are just as old, though, also dating back to the 1960's. #751004-3 still carries its CSD number on side, this being #T4781004. I don't know if this is for historic purposes (maybe it's is slated for preservation), or if it's simple laziness, but it's interesting anyway.

This was my train arriving to take me to Cercany. When I flew into Prague, it was already snowing, and we were almost delayed by the weather, and a few days later Prague was still under snow, giving me the chance to take a lot of snow pictures.

In this photo the train is harder to make out, but that's kind of the point. The huge cloud of snow enveloping the train further adds to the dramatic sense of speed. The crazy thing is that few trains running through Hostivar are doing much more than 60 Km/h.

I happened to be closer to the Cercany crossing (which takes the line to Sazava out of town) when I took this shot, and when the new gates (installed at the end of last year) came down, I took this shot. The wait was considerable for the train, though, as in the Czech Republic it can be a few minutes (not that this means you should do something stupid at a crossing).

This to me is a classic pan shot, although many people get shots like this without panning, so I'm not sure if my opinion is really correct.

This is my favorite of the four shots in the pan, although I've chosen to post all four.

I found this sticker on the wall of Nadrazi Hostivar, and I still haven't figured out exactly what it's supposed to mean. It's got a date on it, as you can see, although it's hard to read. It's 22-11-2009, or November 22nd, 2009. I have no idea what the significance of that date is, or the significance of any aspect of this sticker.

I've done a number of express pans, of course, and train pans generally, but it's only a rare opportunity when I can get an express in the snow. Snow, or at least powder, inevitably magnifies the sensation of speed in a photo, or for that matter in real life.