| Class 451 and 452 EMUs, built by Stud/MEZ and Tatra from 1964-1968 and 1972-1973 respectively, make up a very large proportion of mainline commuter and local services in Bohemia, although it could be said they're long past their heyday. The reasons, in my opinion, are their advanced age, their noisiness, their jerky acceleration (which can cause standees to lose their balance), their inadequate maximum speed of 100Km/h (at least given the line upgrades coming in the near future), the spartanness of their accomodations (even local trains in Europe are generally nicer than on the "Pantographs," as these machines are commonly called), and the fact that they haven't been properly maintained or secured as of late, so vandalism and filth have really taken their toll. Nevertheless, I'm very happy to see that Bohemia still HAS local rail service, as without it, Cesky Drahy would be a far less practical option, and would lose both political support and ridership. This was taken in Mrac, where I had just gotten off a local service from Praha Hlavni Nadrazi (Prague) to Benesov U Prahy. I've had to do a lot of retouching on this photo to correct the colors and (some of) the scanner lines, but some of the "poor resolution" is really fog. |