Anyone who has sampled the railways of the Czech Republic and Slovakia is liable to be bitten by the bug – and that was certainly the case for me. After my taster in 2016, I had no difficulty in persuading my wife that our summer holiday in 2017 should be to Vienna and the Czech Republic and to travel both ways by train. I anticipated being able to cover a lot of ground - rural branches operated by railbuses, diesel haulage, scenery... - in amongst the sightseeing and relaxing. But when I started to work out which trips would be in reasonable range from our holiday bases (I don't go on holiday to do dawn-to-dusk track-bashing, and my wife’s enthusiasm for long trips on slow trains has its limits too), I realised there would be gaps.
So my thoughts turned to my trip to the Protestant Kirchentag in Berlin (Church Convention is an grossly inadequate translation for a huge event) in May 2017, which had been planned for some time with German colleagues. What could I tack on to the trip at reasonable cost, without using too much holiday, and avoiding the familiar and unexciting routes from Köln and Hoek van Holland? I started thinking about those Czech gaps, and came up with a cunning plan. Key objectives were some scenic secondary cross border routes, Czech diesels around Pilsen, railbuses on branch lines, and in Germany the new Erfurt-Leipzig HSL.
It meant leaving East Lancs on a Sunday afternoon (21 May) and flying one way, and an Easyjet Manchester-Vienna flight fitted the bill nicely. So the trip starts at Schwechat Airport with a Railjet (virtually empty, it being after 2100) to the Hauptbahnhof (ordinary tickets valid, unlike the Airport Train - a tip worth knowing) and a connecting tram to reach my hotel for the night. By the way, I couldn't find a Wiener Linien local ticket machine at the airport, and couldn't get senior citizen discount from the OeBB one ☹.
Monday 22 May.
For the princely sum of 9 Euros I had booked a Sparschiene ticket from Wien Heiligenstadt to Ceske Budejovice. So it was down to Stadthalle U-Bahn for the historic overground section through the West of Vienna in time for the 0828 from Wien Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof to Gmünd. As I'd hoped, it was formed of a double-deck set, but the surprise was the MAV class 370 on the front (presumably mileage equalisation). The run is pleasant rather than spectacular, but at least it is much faster than my last trip that way in 1974; the then steam-worked branch lines have of course all gone, bar the preserved narrow-gauge at Gmünd – and the cross-border trains are now the OeBB electrics not a CSD 2-10-0 with one coach!
Ceske Velenice is the original Gmünd station (the 1918 border split the town in two), and it was a cross-platform connection onto a new CD “Panther” 2-car EMU onto Ceske Budejovice, and then on to Plzen behind a class 242 on the service from Brno. The journey was enlivened by being turfed out at Cicenice for a rail replacement bus to Protivin – only a short run, and in typical CD fashion we were only 5 late into Plzen. The idea had originally been to do the diesel-hauled Klatovy-Zelezna Ruda section, but a couple of weeks beforehand I had spotted that the scenic part was RRB that week, so I was on Plan G or thereabouts. That involved one of two diesel-hauled stoppers up to Domazlice (5 elderly centre-corridors, well filled to start with). Domazlice is a typical unmodernised Czech station with slightly decrepit low “platforms” – I had a quick change onto a modernised 842 railcar down to Klatovy.
The station there is interesting, with lots of engine changes as the wires end there, and most important, a booking office with the CD timetable for sale at about £3.50. Said document safely stowed, I trekked into the historic centre (which is very pleasant), grabbed an ice, and headed out the other side of town to Klatovy Mesto halt on the line to Susice and a slightly eccentric but cheap country house hotel. It’s a line worth doing for the scenery, though my train was an 814 rather than the 810 I’d hoped for.
With hindsight, I would have done better from C Bud to catch the loco-hauled Nove Udoli, and then take a railbus on the very scenic route to Strakonice and approach Susice from the other direction. Never mind, I was there, and pool, dinner and bed rather than track-bashing were what I needed.
Tuesday 23 May
An 0750 start next day produced another 814 back to Klatovy, and then a 242-hauled stopper to Plzen. I then headed north-east on the cross-country route to Most, a line largely (but not completely – a rather odd arrangement) operated by GWTR using ex-DB 628s (GWTR is now a subsidiary of bus company CSAD-South Bohemia, which has won the contract for the South Bohemian rail network from this month.).
The first goal for the day was the remote secondary route from Blatno u Jesenice westwards to Becov – an equivalent of a German “Nebenbahn” with low speeds and no signalling (and in this case a bit of freight) . The 810 railbus was equipped for one-man operation with a ticket window, though there was actually a conductor (CD is never knowingly understaffed) and even a couple of paying passengers. The western end of the line has nice scenery, as has the next section onward to Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), which is also operated by GWTR.
The next bit was stressful! The CD class 844 “Shark” DMU had an unexpectedly late start, and the first part of the journey up into the Erzgebirge mountains was slow. I was getting worried about my 3-minute (advertised) connection at Johanngeorgenstadt on the German border – but I needn’t have worried, this is CD and on the last stretch the train – by then almost empty - made up the time.
From Johanngeorgenstadt it was down through the hills to Zwickau, then to Plauen and the Elster valley line to Gera, and next day on via Erfurt and the first part of the new HSL to Berlin. DB-land is familiar territory to many readers, and the next few days were fairly busy (though I did take time out to sample a couple of overland tram routes in the Eastern part of Berlin).
Sunday 28 May
We pick up the thread in the queue at Berlin Südkreuz for the 10-minute interval shuttle service (you had to pre-book, normal services had been suspended) to Luther’s town of Wittenberg where the final service of the Kirchentag was held on the meadows beside the River Elbe. The arrangements worked well, though queue control on the return was poorly thought out. My train was formed of DB IC stock, but all sorts had been hired in for the day, and I wasn’t the only photographer standing on the roadbridge south of the station. It was a very long walk from the station (and back, to collect my suitcase), which we had been warned about, and on a boiling hot day I was relieved to cool off on my onward train along the Elbe to Dessau (the 6-set of Dostos (a/c double-deck stock) was gross overprovision though). I went straight from Dessau to Leipzig (on a new class 442 EMU), where I had a quick look at the deep-level Markt station (acrophobics please avoid!) before heading onward to Werdau and Plauen.
Monday 29 May
Plauen to Nuremberg is a short journey, but that would have been boring and I’d done the route before. Instead, I sampled a Tatra tram to Plauen West halt and boarded the 0833 Länderbahn (a Regio-Shuttle single unit) heading across the border via the spas of Bad Elster, Bad Brambach and Frantiskovy Lazne to the major centre of Cheb; once again there was hardly any through traffic, although before 1990 the line had been an intercity route.
Enough of spa towns, my relaxation for the day was next – I boarded a CD Rx service (semi-fast, but with aircon) via Marianske Lazne to the junction at Plana, and then picked up an unmodernised “bread-bin” 810 railbus for another delightfully bucolic, though rather busier, branch line to Domazlice (where I had enough time to discover there was no longer a buffet); the same 810 took me onward to Klatovy (the units are based there). From there the line to Zelezna Ruda was open again. Waiting for a loco-hauled would have added two hours to my journey, so I opted for a class 814 local. It was plenty enough for the traffic, and standing behind the cab I could see what a state the line still is in places.
At Zelezna Ruda, I walked a few metres along the platform and found myself in Bayerisch Eisenstein instead – and discovered that the station café had shut for the day (it was 16.25). Thence it was all downhill (including a double-hairpin rather like on the Lötschberg line at Blausee-Mitholz) through the Bavarian Forest to Plattling and an ICE to Nürnberg. Time for a restaurant car meal at last. Next day it was onward to Frankfurt and London to see family before heading north by Pendolino and Pacer to Blackburn.
A word on ticketing.
Apart from a couple of short hops, I used Czech regional tickets (for Pilsen County all three times) – these are valid on non-CD services. An Egronet day ticket (at CD prices, which are well below DB’s) took me across the German border northbound, while southbound it was cheaper to use a Vogtlandbahn day rover. I bought the purely Czech tickets online (self-print, no-one asked for ID), the Egronet and the day rover on the train. You can buy on board in CZ, but if you do that after boarding at a staffed station there is a supplement of about £2.
So my thoughts turned to my trip to the Protestant Kirchentag in Berlin (Church Convention is an grossly inadequate translation for a huge event) in May 2017, which had been planned for some time with German colleagues. What could I tack on to the trip at reasonable cost, without using too much holiday, and avoiding the familiar and unexciting routes from Köln and Hoek van Holland? I started thinking about those Czech gaps, and came up with a cunning plan. Key objectives were some scenic secondary cross border routes, Czech diesels around Pilsen, railbuses on branch lines, and in Germany the new Erfurt-Leipzig HSL.
It meant leaving East Lancs on a Sunday afternoon (21 May) and flying one way, and an Easyjet Manchester-Vienna flight fitted the bill nicely. So the trip starts at Schwechat Airport with a Railjet (virtually empty, it being after 2100) to the Hauptbahnhof (ordinary tickets valid, unlike the Airport Train - a tip worth knowing) and a connecting tram to reach my hotel for the night. By the way, I couldn't find a Wiener Linien local ticket machine at the airport, and couldn't get senior citizen discount from the OeBB one ☹.
Monday 22 May.
For the princely sum of 9 Euros I had booked a Sparschiene ticket from Wien Heiligenstadt to Ceske Budejovice. So it was down to Stadthalle U-Bahn for the historic overground section through the West of Vienna in time for the 0828 from Wien Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof to Gmünd. As I'd hoped, it was formed of a double-deck set, but the surprise was the MAV class 370 on the front (presumably mileage equalisation). The run is pleasant rather than spectacular, but at least it is much faster than my last trip that way in 1974; the then steam-worked branch lines have of course all gone, bar the preserved narrow-gauge at Gmünd – and the cross-border trains are now the OeBB electrics not a CSD 2-10-0 with one coach!
Ceske Velenice is the original Gmünd station (the 1918 border split the town in two), and it was a cross-platform connection onto a new CD “Panther” 2-car EMU onto Ceske Budejovice, and then on to Plzen behind a class 242 on the service from Brno. The journey was enlivened by being turfed out at Cicenice for a rail replacement bus to Protivin – only a short run, and in typical CD fashion we were only 5 late into Plzen. The idea had originally been to do the diesel-hauled Klatovy-Zelezna Ruda section, but a couple of weeks beforehand I had spotted that the scenic part was RRB that week, so I was on Plan G or thereabouts. That involved one of two diesel-hauled stoppers up to Domazlice (5 elderly centre-corridors, well filled to start with). Domazlice is a typical unmodernised Czech station with slightly decrepit low “platforms” – I had a quick change onto a modernised 842 railcar down to Klatovy.
The station there is interesting, with lots of engine changes as the wires end there, and most important, a booking office with the CD timetable for sale at about £3.50. Said document safely stowed, I trekked into the historic centre (which is very pleasant), grabbed an ice, and headed out the other side of town to Klatovy Mesto halt on the line to Susice and a slightly eccentric but cheap country house hotel. It’s a line worth doing for the scenery, though my train was an 814 rather than the 810 I’d hoped for.
With hindsight, I would have done better from C Bud to catch the loco-hauled Nove Udoli, and then take a railbus on the very scenic route to Strakonice and approach Susice from the other direction. Never mind, I was there, and pool, dinner and bed rather than track-bashing were what I needed.
Tuesday 23 May
An 0750 start next day produced another 814 back to Klatovy, and then a 242-hauled stopper to Plzen. I then headed north-east on the cross-country route to Most, a line largely (but not completely – a rather odd arrangement) operated by GWTR using ex-DB 628s (GWTR is now a subsidiary of bus company CSAD-South Bohemia, which has won the contract for the South Bohemian rail network from this month.).
The first goal for the day was the remote secondary route from Blatno u Jesenice westwards to Becov – an equivalent of a German “Nebenbahn” with low speeds and no signalling (and in this case a bit of freight) . The 810 railbus was equipped for one-man operation with a ticket window, though there was actually a conductor (CD is never knowingly understaffed) and even a couple of paying passengers. The western end of the line has nice scenery, as has the next section onward to Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), which is also operated by GWTR.
The next bit was stressful! The CD class 844 “Shark” DMU had an unexpectedly late start, and the first part of the journey up into the Erzgebirge mountains was slow. I was getting worried about my 3-minute (advertised) connection at Johanngeorgenstadt on the German border – but I needn’t have worried, this is CD and on the last stretch the train – by then almost empty - made up the time.
From Johanngeorgenstadt it was down through the hills to Zwickau, then to Plauen and the Elster valley line to Gera, and next day on via Erfurt and the first part of the new HSL to Berlin. DB-land is familiar territory to many readers, and the next few days were fairly busy (though I did take time out to sample a couple of overland tram routes in the Eastern part of Berlin).
Sunday 28 May
We pick up the thread in the queue at Berlin Südkreuz for the 10-minute interval shuttle service (you had to pre-book, normal services had been suspended) to Luther’s town of Wittenberg where the final service of the Kirchentag was held on the meadows beside the River Elbe. The arrangements worked well, though queue control on the return was poorly thought out. My train was formed of DB IC stock, but all sorts had been hired in for the day, and I wasn’t the only photographer standing on the roadbridge south of the station. It was a very long walk from the station (and back, to collect my suitcase), which we had been warned about, and on a boiling hot day I was relieved to cool off on my onward train along the Elbe to Dessau (the 6-set of Dostos (a/c double-deck stock) was gross overprovision though). I went straight from Dessau to Leipzig (on a new class 442 EMU), where I had a quick look at the deep-level Markt station (acrophobics please avoid!) before heading onward to Werdau and Plauen.
Monday 29 May
Plauen to Nuremberg is a short journey, but that would have been boring and I’d done the route before. Instead, I sampled a Tatra tram to Plauen West halt and boarded the 0833 Länderbahn (a Regio-Shuttle single unit) heading across the border via the spas of Bad Elster, Bad Brambach and Frantiskovy Lazne to the major centre of Cheb; once again there was hardly any through traffic, although before 1990 the line had been an intercity route.
Enough of spa towns, my relaxation for the day was next – I boarded a CD Rx service (semi-fast, but with aircon) via Marianske Lazne to the junction at Plana, and then picked up an unmodernised “bread-bin” 810 railbus for another delightfully bucolic, though rather busier, branch line to Domazlice (where I had enough time to discover there was no longer a buffet); the same 810 took me onward to Klatovy (the units are based there). From there the line to Zelezna Ruda was open again. Waiting for a loco-hauled would have added two hours to my journey, so I opted for a class 814 local. It was plenty enough for the traffic, and standing behind the cab I could see what a state the line still is in places.
At Zelezna Ruda, I walked a few metres along the platform and found myself in Bayerisch Eisenstein instead – and discovered that the station café had shut for the day (it was 16.25). Thence it was all downhill (including a double-hairpin rather like on the Lötschberg line at Blausee-Mitholz) through the Bavarian Forest to Plattling and an ICE to Nürnberg. Time for a restaurant car meal at last. Next day it was onward to Frankfurt and London to see family before heading north by Pendolino and Pacer to Blackburn.
A word on ticketing.
Apart from a couple of short hops, I used Czech regional tickets (for Pilsen County all three times) – these are valid on non-CD services. An Egronet day ticket (at CD prices, which are well below DB’s) took me across the German border northbound, while southbound it was cheaper to use a Vogtlandbahn day rover. I bought the purely Czech tickets online (self-print, no-one asked for ID), the Egronet and the day rover on the train. You can buy on board in CZ, but if you do that after boarding at a staffed station there is a supplement of about £2.
