European Railroad Discussion > Some random pictures from Slovakia

From Bratislava dwatry and I headed north to the small town of Pezinok which is in the lee of the Little Carpathians. It's part dormitory town, part agricultural centre (vines) with a busy station which consists of two platforms and four tracks. This is a local heading to Bratislava waiting to leave whilst a Bratislava to Trencin (124 kms from Bratislava) train is pulling in.

About 10 minutes later a southbound freight train, consisting of 30 grain hoppers behind a Skoda built class 363 4500 h.p. dual voltage (3kV DC / 25 kV AC) B-B

The following morning found us alongside the River Vah between the towns of Povaska Bystrica and Puchov. A line relocation project is underway as you can see behind this Zilina to Prague express which will reduce the distance between P Bystrica and Puchov and impact the journey time as the water level route is slow because of the curvature.

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South of Puchov the narrow river valley widens into a substantial flood plain and consequently the line speed picks up, 160 kph is the limit. At Ladce there's a large rail served cement plant and a timber loading siding, which was being switched by a CKD built ZSSK Cargo class 742 switcher, which was being operated remotely from the ground.

Whilst the switching went on the 14:20 Zilina to Bratislava sped past, a 45 year old Skoda class 350 at its head. These were the first 160 kph machines built for CSD, they too are dual voltage.

The following day we started at Strecno in the gorge of the River Vah, between Zilina and Vrutky, this is an Ostrava (CZ) to Banska Bystrica train, hauled by a class 757.

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Further east at Krpelany a Skoda class 131 3kV DC double loco on westbound box wagons.

We continued east (our destination today was the Hotel Europa in Poprad) stopping at Liptovsky Hradok where this eastbound loaded coal train, presumably for US Steel at Kosice, was being banked by a 363 up the 1.5% grades to the summit at Strba. On the right is a 742 switcher which works the wood pulp mill.

The final stop on the mainline before Poprad is Svit which has this very remarkable looking station building. Svit is a modern planned town, founded in 1935 by the Bat'a family of shoe fame. Svit is the initials of the factory built by Bat'a; the Slovakian Viscose Works. A 131 is on a westbound and has taken the platform road to allow a fast passenger train past.

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Sadly the weather deteriorated on Saturday. we started out with this picture of R602 the 06:07 Kosice to Bratislava, behind one of ZSSK's new class 383 Siemens Vectrons. Poprad's remarkable station, very 1980s Central Committee Architecture, is in the background.

Later in the day we caught this eastbound tank train behind a pair of 50 year old CKD built class 752 Bardotkas on the secondary mainline between Kosice and Bratislava via Zvolen

Arriving in Kosice we went for a tram ride. Most of the old Tatra T3s have gone, replaced by modern Czech built Pragoimex Varios. But the T6A5s are still in service as are the big double ended KT8D5, this one still in traditional livery



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/19 14:14 by 86235.

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Sunday was pretty miserable, it rained almost all day. We set off east in pursuit of iron ore / coal trains on the broad gauge line from Uzhorod in Ukraine and also stopped at Cierna nad Tisou, the other major interchange with Ukraine. This eastbound 5' gauge empty is passing Ruskov whilst a standard gauge passenger train to Cierna nad Tisou has just completed its station business.

Two final pictures from Cierna nad Tisou; a UZ train behind a VL11M arriving from Ukraine, the ramp on the right is part of the transhipment facilities, broad gauge wagons discharge into standard gauge wagons below.

On the standard gauge line the daily Kosice to Kiev sleeper crosses the border.

After that we headed back to Kosice and the following day went our separate ways, Duncan to Romania and Hungary, me to Vienna and home.

A few more pictures here https://nick86235.smugmug.com/Trains/2019/Slovakia-2019/i-cqmBrTs



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/19 11:43 by 86235.

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Looks like you guys had a successful trip -- thanks for sharing it with all of us.  Excellent photos.

Gordon

Thanks for posting this excellent photo series.
Definitely liked each and every one.
ALLEN

A fantastic series of images, Sir!  Thank you for posting these.

Mike
 

Very interesting series from a rarely documented part of the world

Thanks for posting.

Enjoy the change from all the US postings.

enjoyed your images.  they run on some nice looking roadbed..........

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