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Czech railway system gets an overhaul

Changes mean more routes, higher tariffs, and no smoking

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 19th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
The new rail system expansion will benefit a growing number of commuters who travel to Prague from towns up to 75 miles away.
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Train schedule changes

A look at the most significant changes that have gone into effect:
New hourly weekday routes between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Prague–Ostrava
Prague–Pardubice (continuing service to Česká Třebová and Moravia)
Prague–Ústí nad Labem
Eliminated regional routes.
Děčín–Oldřichov u Duochcova
Losovice–Most

If you’re planning to travel the local railroads during the holidays, you may be in for an unexpected ride.
The season is hitting just after České dráhy (ČD), the country’s largest rail operator, implemented a new train schedule Dec. 9, raising the number of connections between Prague and larger towns throughout the country by approximately 12 percent, while eliminating a number of local routes.
Based on the travel trends of recent years, the new schedule seeks to benefit the growing number of commuters who travel to Prague from towns up to 120 kilometers  (75 miles) away. “In response to growing demand, the 2007/2008 schedule strengthens the routes frequented by passengers who travel back and forth daily,” says Transport Ministry spokesman Karel Hanzelka.
Particular attention was paid to connections between Prague and Pardubice, east Bohemia, with additional connecting routes to central and south Moravia.
ČD also strengthened connections from Prague to the north Bohemian towns of Teplice and Ústí nad Labem, where two regional routes have been replaced by buses, says ČD spokesman Ondřej Kubala.
To compensate the company for the revenue loss it expects to suffer after adding the new routes, ČD will receive an additional 1 billion Kč ($56 million) in funding from the Transport Ministry, which owns the company.
Through these investments, in addition to the creation of new routes, ČD hopes to revamp its long-ailing passenger sector by revitalizing its trains, may of which are between 35 and 40 years old and sit rusting in car parks.
 “In order to get more people to use public transportation instead of [driving], it’s expected that we offer fast, frequent connections on a regular basis,” says Deputy Transport Minister Petr Šlegr.
In addition, ČD made its trains more comfortable for passengers by imposing a smoking ban in all cars as of Dec. 9.
“Eighty-one percent of our customers said they would welcome an all-out smoking ban,” says Luďka Hnulíková, director of ČD’s passenger transport department. “We want to go in the direction of other European countries. When you look into a train car, you’ll find that the non-smoking section is filled to capacity while, the smoking section has only a handful of passengers.”
But it’s not all good news for passengers—to compensate for inflation and climbing energy costs, ČD is raising its tariffs by approximately 11 percent.
“The fare hikes are caused by higher inflation levels, which will raise our expenses for fuel and repairs,” ČD General Manager Josef Bazala announced Dec. 9 on Czech Television.
Missed connection
Aside from these new regulations, the new schedule brings a multitude of logistical dilemmas in tow. In mid-November, ČD launched an extensive reconstruction project in the main hall of Hlavní nádraží, Prague’s largest train station, forcing the closure of some of the west-bound tracks leading to the Smíchov train station (Smíchovské nádraží) in Prague 5.
As a result, the additional trains that were placed on the city’s tracks in accordance with the new schedule jammed up the crippled infrastructure Dec. 12, causing up to 151-minute delays on some routes.
According to Šlégr, these delays were the result of an extreme situation that forced ČD and Transport Ministry representatives to hold two crisis meetings Dec. 12 and 13 to resolve the matter.
“We could not have predicted that the complications arising [from the new schedule] would be so extreme,” he told the daily Mladá fronta Dnes Dec. 12.
The crux of the problem, Kubala says, was caused by a mass rerouting of trains from the main depot at Smíchovské nádraží to Odstavné nádraží jih (ONJ), a train depot in the southern section of the city. “Unfortunately,” says Kubala, “we are in a situation where Prague has a minimal amount of available tracks along with a higher amount of trains than in recent years.”
As a result, “the new routes created a narrow gorge, and the depot wasn’t able to prepare the trains in time,” he adds of the bottleneck effect.
During the Dec. 12 and 13 meetings, officials decided to alleviate the ONJ traffic by sending the trains coming from Hradec Králové east Bohemia direction to a provisional depot at the Praha-Hostivař station in Prague.
Additional time-saving provisions included simplifying the process by which individual train cars were connected at the depots and deploying more locomotives.
According to Kubala, both ČD and the Transport Ministry consider the Dec. 12 fiasco an isolated event.
“After implementing these changes, we’re already noticing an [improvement],” he says. “I’m convinced that the situation is already stabilized.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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