Czech Railways Today

Our last home meeting of the season was Czech Railways today presented by Robert Pritchard of Platform 5 fame. Robert is the author of the Czech and Slovak railways stock book – a new edition will be out soon.

A whirlwind tour of the country began in Prague with its architecturally impressive main station. We saw Railtours with class 749/751 “Grumpys”, DMU’s and some 1970’s centre cab shunters plus modern Vectron electrics. As regards electrics the South is AC and the North DC though eventually all will be converted to AC.

Prague Metro trolleybuses and funicular were covered. Visits to metro and rail depots showed a much more relaxed attitude to Health and Safety including large numbers riding outside on class 741s in depots. There were impressive photos of several roundhouses.

Since independence 1993 there are open access operators with 20% of the market the largest being Regio Jet. Unlike Britain many of the long distance trains are loco hauled. New interJet and ComfortJet coaching stock is being introduced. There are a few Pendolino 680 class in service between Prague and Ostrava.

I lost count of the number of animal named classes but we saw the impressive City Elephant class 471 double deck EMUs. Others were Regio Panther, Regio Shark, Spider, and Mouse

We saw some class 142 from the 1957 in front line service, some Chinese 685’s which are yet to enter service. Other vintage locos were 242s surviving on expresses but expected to be gone next year. In addition the class 754 Goggles or Specs locos are still around. We saw the Skoda works at Pilsen where the 380s are built, coal traffic, and steelworks.

In addition there were lots of colourful liveries and magnificent scenic shots of the countryside and cities not to mention some steam and narrow gauge lines.

All in all a tour de force by a man who really knows his subject which was well received by an audience of 20 in person and 30 online