Did You Know Czech Railways Are This Good? 

Thanks for the information. We will pin this comment :D

@@RailwaysExplained there’s so many interesting stuff about our railroads you could probably have content for a whole year about just different regions and their specifics lmao like that we had one of the first public rail lines in continental Europe (České Budějovice - Gmund) or the various narrow gauge lines and even intercity streetcars that multiple cities have

@@RailwaysExplained Additional information: 15kV 16,7Hz is between Retz (Austria) and Znojmo (Czechia). Bechyňka (the railway with 1,5 kV DC) is really interesting. It is the first electrified railway in Czechia (1903, so long before the first mainlines electrification). It was supposed to be a normal regional railway built within the same standards as other railways built at that time, but due to cost cutting measures it was build with unusually geometry (steeper gradients and sharper turns). So the line was built more like an interurban tramway than a normal railway. And there is more. This line is home to a bridge near the city of Bechyně named "Bechyňský most Duha". This bridge have two lanes for cars, but there are railway tracks in one of those lanes, so the train is sharing the same space as cars (it functions as railway crossing so you cannot enter when the train goes through).

@@geography_czek5699 Regarding the 1.5kV DC, there are lines in coal quarries in Northern Bohemia use it as well. This would most likely significantly increase length of 1.5kV systems. And most likely add little bit to the density of the railway network.

@@geography_czek5699 That´s probably reason why it is one of lines proposed for tramtrains vehicle (alongside some local railways around Kutná hora and few around Prague with direct conection to tram network)

Yes, I used to ride pendolino every week for 5 years, and now it is way better service. Free internet, power sockets, cheap svíčková brought to your seat with online order, payments by card..too bad they didnt do it earlier. But now the journey to ostrava takes longer. There was a time when it took only 2h45m. Still, they make quite dick moves, some connecting ČD trains leave few minutes before regiojet arrival, and you have to wait almost an hour for the next

@@peepa47 yep, it now takes longer and the prices of CD are just too big if you dont have the card. Forr 2 persons it doenst make sense to travel by train if you have car.

I am glad that Regiojet exists, but I don't like the way you sit down and a steward will first ask you whether you want a free water bottle, then they come back again to ask you whether you want some newspaper and then if you want a coffee or something. As an introvert I rarely order anything like that and having to say "No" 3 times to the same person in a span of 5 minutes makes me really uncomfortable:D

@@noteda6361 I really like this RegioJet approach much more. They never ask you for your ticket unless you have som discount. When I used to travel with CD to slovakia I wanted to sleep and had to show my ticket 3 times during the trip and thats what I hate much more. I also feel a little bit like a criminal when I have to show that I have the right to be there. The main benefit of CD is that when private carriers are fully booked, you alwayes can get a ticket in CD.

Nah, their greatest achievement is to serve Sushi on a train. Your point is a close second though. :P

Everybody everywhere complains about their transportation system, because all of them are compromises and trade-offs and none of them are perfect. The only people who don't complain about a transportation system are visitors (or maybe recent arrivals) from an area with a worse transportation system, and that's temporary.

Never seen a Japanese or a Chinese person complain about their railways.​@@AlRoderick

They're old, but also surprisingly comfy and still relatively fast in my experience

it is still quite expensive when compared to car journeys though, especially if you're a group of at least 2 or more. I live in a small town and going to Karlovy Vary by train costs me about 35 cz each way, if we're at least 2 people, it's literally cheaper, and more convenient if you're carrying a lot of stuff, to go by car, like shopping or picnics or grilling parties. I only go by train on occasion precisely due to this.

@@baph0met Well, those systems are literally the best in the world. In Europe you are choosing between the flawed (ČD), the bad (DB) and the worst (the various UK railways), whereas in Japan you just see how it should be done properly.

😅 good one

We only have good connections to london, although none of them are true high speed 😮‍💨 God help you, if you want to get between two places outside of london 🫡

@@Hession0Drasha as always the uk proving that it only cares about london. it used to be an empire with 25% the world now its just a city

We Czechs we do know that we have the densest track network in europe - its done historicly since half of 19. century. 20-30% of that track net makes 90% of all rides (modernised double tracked corridors) the rest are regional very curvy lines in the beautiful landscape of Czech countrside.

Yes and our classics will die.

Yeah, ČD is really improving massively.

Why diesel?! 😩

​@@Vesemir668 many local tracks are not electrified yet. Regiofox is meant for those tracks, that were previously used by class 810 and Regionova units.

@@Vesemir668 whats wrong with diesel?

It's actually going to allow for 350 km/h, but expected operation speed is 320

​@@user-ib9pz6id5bthese additional 30 km/h are too hard on the rails for them to be worth it.

@@user-ib9pz6id5b Ah okay I only saw "320kmh max operating speed" on their website

@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 Yeah...don't know why they do that when they are designing it to allow for 350, but I would imagine it's to align with neighbourhooding countries' standards

@@user-ib9pz6id5b Wear of track and wheels and other things like energy consumption that is nonlinear with speed.

But it's getting worse even here, a lot of local lines were already canceled and people are completley screwed in these places, not everyone can have or want to have a car and buses can be pain in the ass when it's crowded and everyone is buying ticket from driver, which can cause even like 20 minutes delay just because of that, I absolutely hate buses. But change is planned for PID system (around Prague), it should be the same as in Prague - going in thru all doors and not showing or buying tickets from driver like now. I hope they will really make this change, I am really looking forward for that. And letting private companies ride trains it not always the best, they have lower safety standards, their trains are very often literally from museum (like sleeping train to Croatia operated by regiojet, that's literally rail museum on wheels) and they created terrible mess in ticket systems. In the past, there was only flexible tickets with fixed price, it was not the cheapest option, but you didn't need any seat reservation or mandatory train, now on those commercial lines, you need tickets for specific trains and with mandatory seat reservation and price is constantly changing, which is really annoying, this is not how trains should work. People need to get somewhere, it should not be mainly bussines, but more like service for people. It's very granted from taxes anyway. People complain about ČD (national company), but actually ČD has the best trains and the best services and it's also the only company that has actual restaurant cars in higher class trains, which I really like. In regiojet, they will give you some terrible coffee from can like if it was some school canteen or something. In ČD trains, you can have actual meal and beer in glass. BTW, I think that everyone who goes to Vienna or Berlin and such places by car is stupid, I don't understand why they do that when you are there in 4-5 hours by train and you can sit in restaurant and eat or drink coffee or beer or whatever and you don't care about traffic jams and when train is delayed, who cares, you are already sitting in. How they do it in other countries? They just inform these rednecks that there will be trains now and f*ck off, they important key constructions for state can't be blocked like that, even in USA, the most capitalist country, they know that and they act like the most communist country in this case. I don't understand why we always have to stop everything because of one villager who doesn't agree.

weird. The NS runs pretty reliable local lines in the netherlands, called sprinters. They are everywhere in small regions, germany has them to.

@@Pidalin České dráhy were forced to change. And for the better. I actually prefer them. I never tried Leo Express, only once Regiojet, it was bad, toilet out of service, air con did not work. I do regularly use Arriva, few times a year, but I could raise complains as well. Like single toilet in the carriage, no air con, windows can barely open... Seat reservation does not show, so you have to ask people to leave the seat you booked. And one ticket is a joke, overpriced joke! For one journey I took with Arriva and Die Landerbahn CZ I would have paid 200CZK for OneTicket, while the journey actually costed like 100 and few CZK extra, so nearly half of the OneTicket. Thanks, but no thanks. Plus I have Inkarta 50 which makes travelling nicely cheapish. And I can hear you about cancelled rails. I am sooo glad it seems the tracks to Kralovice u Rakovnika may have a chance! I used to go there via the Rakovnik fast train by KŽC, the only regular train on the tracks. And now there is regular weekend service all year around. So fingers crossed for more tracks to get second chance!

@@Pidalin I think that bus is not a proper replacement for a train of any kind. It's just a way the local goverments to undercut the commuters (they would be happiest if there was no public transport at all)

It's a great experience when lazy Germans on strike don't stop all trains as they do like 10 times every year. 😀

Fr

Ain't called the Heart of Europe for laughs

@@czechballmapping Nice profile picture lol

Less goo i can visit my grandma

AKA the First Czechoslovak Republic express

Only ignorant people do that tho.

@@pavelcerny9803 true

Or ČD času dost with meaning that the Czech railways has enough time

a nebo čekej debile :D

Čekáš dlouho? Čekej dál. Času dost. ;D Waiting long? Keep waiting. Enough time

And even more from the time and laws back when those lines were build, it was after the crash of Viennese stock exchange and those lines were build as cheap as possible, those build before were often build, even if they were branch lines, with parameters close to main lines and as such can be easily upgraded to speeds around or even over 100kph, but those build after, often just as attempts to finish and connect existing lines, are constrained by curves with radius way below 350m which is close to minimum for 80kph.

@@MrToradragon Also also we have so dense network that there´s basically no more places to build modern region railways and it´s much less likely to gain money to modernise old ones, on the other hand in the last few years is this situation much better

@@filipkrobot I would say that rather the mindset is the main issue here, many of those line connect to each other in wrong directions or not at all, so it is hard to create some meaningful medium distance service. Or in general some meaningful service. As i have pointed out in different comment, there is whole system of lines northwest of Prague, yet they are not suitable for moving people as those lines lead and connects in wrong directions, yet were great for moving coal. Similar situation is then, I would say, many other places where either lack of electrification or line connecting in "wrong" direction prevents existence of reasonable connection to regional centre.

and second aspect of this speed (for me its possitive) is that you can observe beauty of our nature and land scape. Some places are like from fairy tail.

You're welcome ☺️

Perhaps they can provide some advice for the North American operators.

Not many new lines being built honestly, the vast majority of projects consist of large scale renovation projects. Have to note that pretty much all of them turn out really good.

Not really, you don't see it from perspective of someone who actually lives here, they for example renovate some rails, but it's going slower and generally worse than before, I would prefer old trains, jumping to mud like in the past, but trains on time and flexible tickets everywhere, not stupid private companies nad 999 diffierent tickets and seat reservations. At least for ordinary commuting trains, there are still normal flexy tickets or you can use month or year passes for zones you need, but long line trains are a mess now because of privatisations. Sometimes you go somewhere, you buy flexy ticket from A to B because that is how it was since forever and then you realize that your last train is operate by some private moron and your ticket is useless and they are that stupid that they won't give you universal "one ticket" automaticaly. That's why I use apps now and I am buying tickets mostly myself, better than explaining what I actually want to some rude person at train station. You hear how good it is and how it improved, but when you live in some small town, you have buses instead of trans like 5 months in year, it doesn't work at all, everything is wrong with our trains, Správa Železic (owner of infrastructure) absolutely doesn't know what they are doing, they should probably privatise them too because it can't be worse. And our fast trains......I am absolutely sure that Poland will finish them before we actually start with construction here in Czechia, this country has no future, we will all move to Poland for senior age, there is future, not here in this open air museum where one single villager can block construction of railways for decades because these car people just hate trains.

I mean...apart from the HSRs we don't really build anything new. We do tons of upgrading, but SŽ manages to combine absolute incompetency with actually making some good projects

hahahah EU yea right, you have no power here fuck off

What if that stat was computed per-passenger?

Us Czechs are kinda funny. We constantly complain, yet we live in one of the best countries on the planet. Can you imagine what would it look like if we would also protest like French? :D

@@azzy9358 It wouldn't work that well, though. The French are rather large agricultural producers; so protests mean a lot of tomatoes and suchlike on the motorways... What would we spill? Beer? 1/ it wouldn't achieve much and 2/ what an unacceptable waste! No, we much rather drink it and complain nice and cosy in the pub... ;-)

miluju :D

And some inner Prague lines have been already electrified with 1,5kV DC before IInd world war has started and there were plans to get 1,5kV to Beroun. After IInd WW, they have taken Italian 3kV DC system in 1949 and started with the route Děčín - Praha - Česká Třebová - Ostrava - Valašské Meziříčí - Žilina - Košice - Čierná nad Tisou. (Finished in 1960s.) Interesting fact: Prototype EMUs and first locomotives were able to operate on both 1,5kV and 3kV. Later rest of the Prague switched to 3kV. In 60s they have started to use 25kV AC on the south portion of former Czechoslovakia and wanted to use it in whole country, but in 1980 Škoda Plzeň has introduced ES 499.1 (363) locomotive, that was the world first semiconductor driven locomotive for DC and AC systems with large scale of automation. These locomotives were produced in big numbers so reelectrification to 25kV AC was halted. In the new millenium, many foreign 6000+kW locomotives started to use our network and 3kV DC network reached its maximum limits, so plans to convert our network to 25kV AC were revived. First line which switched to 25kV AC was Nedakonice - Říkovice in 2022.

I’m Czech travelling around the world pretty much and I know people will hate to read this: Czechs are experts in complaining about anything and they hate changes. They are unable to be satisfied, everywhere they love to look only on negative aspects. A majority of people there wants to be Western, but behaves still like Eastern Europe. It’s always nice to get back home for holidays, but after a week I‘ve enough of the overall negative, smoking and drunk attitude and jealousy.

They are deffinetly not affordable. Maybe if you travel alone then some routes are cheaper. But if you travel in group 2 and more people bus or car is always cheaper. In fact its in oposite they are very expensive especialy if you travel long distance.

@@romanc189 Maybe you should look out for special (hidden) offers. There are weekend group tickets for a whole day for up to 5 people for 899 Czk. For 1079 Czk there is the option to include mass transit in Prague. There are group tickets only for the regions for around 300 Czk. For 899 Czk there isn't a chance to get 5 people that cheap by car as example from Prague to Brno/Ostrava and back. Even Pilsen will be impossible (not counting just gasoline).

@@romanc189 I’d say travelling in a group by train is always more expensive than sharing a car regardless of the country. I think some places let children travel for free or there are group discounts. You make a good point since I was thinking only of solo travellers:) Affordable might not be the right word since it’s heavily dependent on the average income etc. I think I’m mostly thinking of the central bohemian region which is where I travel the most. I would say for what you pay it’s a good deal and well if you don’t own a car at all I’m sure you would be saving much more overall since you don’t worry about fuel costs + insurance + maintenance etc. For long distance sure it can be a lot I’m pretty sure 50 euros is the most I’ve seen which agreed is quite alot. Prague Bratislava for 10/20 euros though is quite good for a 400km solo journey though I’d say

Get your popcorn ready, because this is one ride you don't want to miss 😁

Thanks a lot. It's great to have viewers like you who keep us on track.

​@@RailwaysExplained Heh... "Keep us on track."

@@mrmakovec6198 Also there are 2 direct lines to Opava, ČD and RegioJet.

It is absolutely incredible what they managed to accomplish. Back then ČD basically had only old soviet era carriages, and RegioJet came in with nice fresh cars with really good onboard service. This lead to a huge improvement in the quality of ČD services, which still continues. Unfortunately RegioJet fell off quite a bit and the position of these two in terms of reputation has almost switched. But still, we are thankful for some nice competition!

@@jakubmitlohner4615 in therms of train quality they are equal, and ČD is sometimes even better, but ČD still lack some quality of life features like online servise to seat or free cancelation of tickes 15 min before departure, these are very nice if you are traveling long dsistances on weekly or even dayly basis.

@@jakubmitlohner4615 In what way did RegioJet fall off? Whenever I'm traveling on a route serviced by both, I always try to get tickets for RegioJet. The on-board service is incomparable.

Thank you for the positive feedback, Filip! We're thinking of first covering the railways of Slovakia and Hungary to give a broader context before delving into the exciting developments in high-speed rail. We’ve already touched on Poland's advances when we discussed the CPK initiative. Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for your suggestion!

@@RailwaysExplainedAmazing, Thanks again.

Where is the problem? ČSSR existed until 1989. Trains are in service for 40 years.

that'[s ot very old for a train-- they are crappy little tinfoil cars

Thanks. We did our best.

Czechia is rich

​@@Fidorita meh Poland has it better tbh

Thanks ☺️

Sandly 2-3 minutes are not consider delay by ČD or other carriers or even most of the people traveling. We are kinda used to call 10 min delays to be "on time". Locals are kinda used to it and we are planing acordingly. Not so good if you are tourist or new, but even this is getting better.

also love the old putt-putts and small trains

I'm American, one service on one line (Acela) is maybe better in some aspects. Otherwise, they can beat any region you care to overlay the map on.

Czechia is planning several HSR tracks (marked as RS1-RS5), the one to Germany is marked RS4 and they would like to start building before 2030. SŽ and DB is planning Krušnohorský tunnel on route from Dresden to Ústí n.L. (length of it is about 26 km).

That could be in part due to former competition of several companies in 19th century to run trains between Vienna and Prague so they had to build reasonable line and at the same time to build it in such way that it would connect at least some important towns as well and preferably such that they would be the only major line in the town.

I am unlucky

That should be done till 2032 - there is a monstrous project in Brno ongoing, where the main station will be relocated, newly built (of course for the HSR) and a whole new city quarter will rise up. The work shall start in 2028.

@@viktornovomestsky3999 this should be the first open line actually, alto most field experts are very skeptical about 2023, not mentioning even more skeptical about relocating the main station in Brno witch is in plans for decades. Dont get me wrong, as a student of railway engineering i´m so exatided about all of the HSR, but if we talk about it with my professors, they dont really believe in finishing these projects in these deadlines.

Hvala puno. Pozdrav za Prag iz kišovitog Beograda.

@@RailwaysExplained I ovde je sada isto vreme.

That sounds rather like an urban legend as the main reason for lack of electrification is 40 years of communist mismanagement, their economy was simply not able to generate enough resources, or rather they were not able to allocate those resources properly, to electrify the network. Even some main lines were still not electrified by 90's. Reason why some companies are operating diesel locomotives on electrified lines is simple, they do not have electric locomotive or not enough of them, so they use those that they have. Another possibility is that it only goes on electrified line for some distance and then the train continues on line without electrification.

@@MrToradragon I forgot to add, that both the question and the rumor were said in the context of Slovakia having (allegedly) larger percentage of electrification (in terms of kilometers traveled, not sure if per passenger or per locomotive).

@@ariaden Slovakia might have greater percentage of electrified lines, but at the same time they have less dense network that was as well originally build with different intent. The thing is that both networks to great extent still reflect their time of creation - 19th century. Back then Czechia was industrial base of Habsburg Empire and as such required dense network of railways that were used to ship products and materials for industry and often some passenger service was just afterthought on some long spur leading to some factory. Not to mention that over the time having railway in town had became sign of prestige and many towns and cities that were either missed by main line (or some other longer line) or had refused them outright in early days of railway, now wanted them and thus paid for at least short branch line that connected them to the nearest line. But Slovakia back then was much more rural and had no need for such dense network, density of their network is only about one third of the density in Czechia and thus it is easier for them to have greater percentage of electrified lines and as well greater share of service provided by trains powered by electricity.

Czech railway has made a huge step forward since the fall of communism, but mostly in the last 15 years. I was in Slovakia last year, and their railways are actually exactly as you described the Czech ones. Grass everywhere, desolate stations with graffiti all over them, everything's rusty and not maintained at all. That felt like a return to the 80s.

Fun fact: Another Czech composer - Antonín Dvořák was huge train enthusiast, he once said: "All of my symphonies I would give if I had invented the locomotive!"

That is ongoing process.

Wikipedia says it's Belgian. I would believe that since it does not look like anything made in Czech Republic.

@@Xyronium It's on MRT Line 3 - ČKD Tatra RT8D5 (MRTC 3000 class)

It is! I would still say, that those pretty much trains arent really suited for that kind of operation, but I hope they still do their best

Couple of points. Firstly you have to separate the infrastructure and service. The infrastructure is not privatized (well, almost, more below) neither in case of rail nor in case of highways, btw. In case of rail there are further 2 models. In both infrastructure owner sells out the capacity for fixed price to the provider. Then you have either multiple providers, who directly compete with each other for customers (that would be mostly long distance like Praha Brno or Praha Ostrava) where you can make direct consumer choice. So you are consumer and you benefit directly from the competition. Note, that it's not only about the price but also about the type and level of service that you're receiving. Or alternatively in second model, which is typical for regional lines, the buyer - usually kraj - runs a tender in which different companies compete and whoever wins the tender gets to run the the line for period of time. Again it's about price but also about type of service. For example, if a company is willing to invest into smaller units that can service more lines at the same time that can be an advantage over other company that has cheaper to operate but fewer units, etc... In this case you are not really a consumer. You vote for local government which then selects the provider for you, hopefully based on what's best for the kraj. (albeit, as you can imagine, this can be and often is subject to corruption and nepotism) So the competition is involved, just not always in you directly choosing which provider to use. There's a third model in which the provider gets not only to run the line but also run the infrastructure, that's mostly in the border areas. It absolutely does help. Best example is the line from Praha to Ostrava where introduction of private competition slashed the price almost by half and improved the service significantly. But also for regional lines, the different types of service, etc, gives kraje more options to select from, whereas in the past CD just said take what's on the table or sod off. There are obviously downsides too. Mainly, that CD, since it's not a private company, doesn't have to generate profit, so we have to subsidize them from our taxes. However, that would be true, far worse even, in monopolistic model and there would be no motivation for them to improve the service at all. Which was the case before introduction of private operators. Hope this helps.

@@misarthim6538 Thank you very much for the information, it makes much more sense now. It seems that the competition works best on those longer distance services. I think that the system we have going on over here is good. It's good that they mostly do the privatizations cautiously and only where it makes sense. Imo, there should be much more cooperation between city planners and the railways, so that new housing development is built in walking/biking distance from the local train station. Like there are so many stations that are surrounded by ruins of some old factories or are just in the middle of nowhere - why not incentivise developers to rebuild those spaces? In this regard, we should just borrow the Japanese urbanist model, where the train station is like the commercial centre of the city. Like just do the opposite of Nádraží Holešovice please.

Much more traffic on nearly the same rails and more stops.