Well we left Prague for the summer. On Sunday night we took an overnight train from Prague to Lviv, Ukraine. No, the picture above is not our train. Here is the route that Google maps came up with.
The actual route we took skipped Brno but instead went through Pardubice, Olomouc and Ostrava. The train was the #201 “Silesia” from Prague to Krakow, Poland. Our car continued on to Presmysl, Lviv and Kiev. We arrived in Lviv at about midnight Ukraine time, so the whole trip was a little over 24 hours.
The ride from Krakow to Kiev would be interesting for any “rail” fans. In Presmysl, the wheels are changed to the narrower gauge used in Ukraine. Trains in the former USSR use a narrower gauge than in western Europe. This was to make invasion from the west more difficult
The cars are brought into the yard where they jack up the entire coach with everyone in it! Then the old wheels and axels, which I think are called “railroad trucks”, are rolled out and the new trucks rolled in. Maybe I will post a few pictures of the process.
We spent about six hours in the rail yard in Krakov waiting for them to assemble our train. I took a few pictures of some old burned-out coaches in the yard. I had to cross several busy tracks to get to the burned cars. It was probably dangerous because trains were passing at high speed. Then I got yelled at by one of the bosses: “Ne volny. Ne volny.” I will try to post a couple of pictures.
