On To The Czech Republic

After touring Vienna for six days (and a side trip to Salzburg), it was time to move on to Prague in the Czech Republic.

Before leaving Vienna, I discovered the Carl Hilpert toy store near Stephansdom. Check out the trains! The entire top floor is trains, mostly European models but I did see a SOO engine and a few American ones. It was pretty spendy and I didn't buy anything, but it was fun to tour it.

Bright and early on September 29, we headed to the Wien Hauptbahnhof to catch our Railjet to Prague.

There were a lot of trains departing!

We had quite a wait so I had a long time to wander around and photograph trains... I was OK with that.

A two unit diesel powered train

A Bombardier Talent trainset

CityShuttle 8073 011-3... pushed by an electric locomotive on the other end

An ÖBB 1063 pushing some passenger cars.

Nose to nose - two Talent sets coupled together

Our Railjet arrived and we boarded. We had paid extra to choose our seats so we were able to sit together. It was quite comfortable but unfortunately had no wifi. I visited the snack bar in the neighbouring car to get a little snack.

I used an offline English-Czech dictionary app to translate a few words here and there while we were in the Czech Republic. This chip bag says "lightly salted".

We soon left Austria and entered the Czech Republic. Since we were in the Schengen Area, there was no passport check or any notice at all that we were passing into the Czech Republic.

The train looks much like an airplane.

There were lots of trains to see on the way. Here's a sampling of some that I saw from the train.

Česká Třebová station

An LTE Group locomotive - no idea what kind but it's pretty cool!

This was our top speed - 160 km/hr or 100 MPH

Hey look, a grain elevator!

Even some grain cars on a siding... complete with graffiti. I felt like I was home again!

Transcereales grain cars

České dráhy series 163 locomotive #061-5, made by Škoda and capable of 120 km/hr operation

The Škoda CityElefant class 471 electric multiple unit train

The Brno passenger station

We arrived at the Praha Hlavní Nádraží (Prague main train station). The engineer spotted the train just right for this photo.

Arrival

We collected our bags (stored in the same car that we were in) and headed out into Prague to begin the second half of our vacation.

Next up - Trams of Prague!

Also, have a look at this slideshow of Czech locomotives.