Dining cars from czech railways line Ex5 Berliner? Today they are making joy elsewhere - on line Ex1 Silesia/Ostravan. Thanks to it, this great rail catering service is available even where it was not available before, where you couldn't have this great breakfast in years gone by. :-)

…which will certainly cover almost all regional line in most of Romania and this will mean a certain end for, among others, the 20-54 and 20-55 series cars, which used to be among the most widespread here. Built in 60s-80s, rebuilt in 1998-2000 for fast inland services.

Ten hours of the journey passed quickly, followed by a change at Dej Călători for a regional train to Cluj-Napoca. This was made up of an interesting mix of cars and again one of the objectives of the trip, because the Romanian railways are expecting the delivery of several dozen Pesa Elf.eu EMUs…

It became interesting again in Romania. I made a similar trip in 2023, then on the now rebuilt Oradea - Cluj-Napoca line, and it was nicer than actual diversion through Valea lui Mihai and Zalău. It was a very pleasant ride, especially the opening window was nice. :-)

…in Bpmz, made in Germany in the mid-90s, were AC and sockets fine. The only thing missing was passengers... empty carriage was heading from Budapest to Târgu Mureș and more pax use it deeper in the Romanian hinterland. I slept almost all the way through Hungary, but I didn't lose anything.

The reason for using this car on international train with a journey time of 16 hours is space for bicycles, which other Hungarian carriages don’t have and demand for bicycle transport exists here. Although other cars used here already meet the outdated standards of EC/IC trains…

Another quest accomplished - as of today I am authorized to drive this legendary DMU "Vindobona". See you soon between Prague and Mladá Boleslav / Mělník! :-)

Using this train meant not only crossing new railway lines in Romania, but spending 10 hours in a 1970 car that had only a small upgrade, no AC or sockets. There was also something better available, but the possibility of experiencing travel once more as I did in my youth was very hard to resist. 😁

The journey to Budapest went a bit differently than planned, but the important thing was that I caught IC 367 Hargita from Budapest to Romania. The train leaves Keleti at 6:40 and was originally heading via Oradea and Cluj to Brasov, but due to construction it is going Zalău, so outside Cluj.

So I went to Greece in mid-June. By train. From Prague. It was not only about Greece itself, but also about many little things along the way, including some ancient carriages and riding on an international train in an eight-seater compartment without AC is a somewhat rare thing these days. :-)

Bahnzeit in Praha-Libeň train yard. Today line S7 with class 162 only. 😅