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A West Midlands Travel 1993 Adventure

Our planned outing up the Jested mountain fell on the day Ian was leaving us to return home to the UK. Here is our last look [1] at his fine Routemaster, parked outside the hotel whilst luggage was brought out. The local chap writing down bus times was oblivious to the foreign bus when it pulled up alongside him, and then walked off without even a glance at it! Perhaps it sounded like just another Karosa to him.
After farewells to Ian and Co we went to catch a number 3 tram for the half hour ride up to near the cable car station to reach the top of the Jested and the strange tower there. Our tram [2] unusually, was a lightly loaded single car and is seen [3] at the outer terminus turning circle, reminding some of our team of Rednal in it's tramway heyday. A 10 minute uphill walk (15 in my case) brought us to the lower station of the cable car. Having just missed a departure we repaired to the bar next door for a cooling pivo (or two) for the next 25 mins. The two cable cars were operated by the Czechoslovakian State Railways (CSD) and our tickets were Edmondson style card tickets. From the next car [4] we could see the climb ahead of us then within 10 minutes arrived at the top station. Looking back from the station window over the roof of the car [5] Liberec certainly looked a long way down but then the Jested is some 3036 feet above sea level.
 
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An experiance in itself that cable car Mike. it was a great trip you all undertook, how you remember the detail after these years amazes me.
 
Mike, this thread is an island of repose and sanity in an ocean of turbulence and madness!

In picture [2] of the tram interior, are those single seats heated? I remember when I visited Zürich in the early 1990s and travelled on their excellent tramway system, selected seats were heated. They were always occupied by "women of a certain age"! :D

Re the cable car Edmondson ticket: I hope you kept it, and request a picture.
 
Thanks John., I can't remember what I did yesterday but longer term memory is still working quite well! The photos help remind me as I go along, I only wish I had taken more as recent visits see so much changed over there since 1993.

Thank you too Thylacine, every tram seat is indeed fitted with underseat heating, but thankfully fully enclosed unlike those in the clip (thanks for attaching that:thumbsup:). I will look out some tickets to show at the end of the trip.
 
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A glimpse back at the cable car [1] and now we had actually reached the elusive shiny tower [2] on top the Jested Mountain that we had seen in the distance from the Liberec Airport site. It contained a luxury hotel and a seperate self service restaurant to which we made our way for lunch. I chose the traditional goulash and dumplings and a beer that came to 35 korunas (less than £1 then). I gave the girl a 1000 Korunas note at which she opened the till, burst into tears and ran off through a door behind her clutching the note. The door opened and a smartly dressed man came out and started talking to me in Czech. On telling him I was English he he throws his arms up in the air starts hitting himself on the head. Czechs behind me in the queue fall about laughing. By this time David and Frantik have come to see what all the commotion is about. We then find out the till girl has never seen a 1000 note before and hasn't enough in the till to give me change. Her manager is asking me if I have anything smaller to pay with which I don't so David pays. Round of applause from the laughing Czechs and I get a hand shake off the manager and a big smile off the till girl. The goulash was good too. We find out the tower was built as a hotel during Communist times as a cover for one a string of Cold War radio 'listening posts', a function it still carries out now for UNESCO. After lunch it was back down the cable to get to the tram terminus where a twin car set [3] was soon to depart. We decided to ride in the front car where [4] is a view forward with the motorman's cab on the left. He can shut himself away from the passengers as he has no fares to take or tickets to issue. All tickets must be prepurchased off the tram from street ticket machines, the many tobacco/newsagent kiosks or in our case, hotel reception. Passengers cancel their tickets in a punch machine located just inside the platform doors. Taken in motion [5] showing our trailing car rocking and rolling along behind us.
 
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Nice one, Mike! I love that image of the restaurant manager confronted by the "Zummerzet Brummie with the 1000 K note"! :headhit: :D

The pictures are wonderful, as usual.
 
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On the road, tram style and [1] we pass car 69 that brought us up earlier in the day. Our tram steadily filled up as did the trailing car so that by the time we reached Liberec railway station on the edge of the city centre we decided to evacuate and walk the remaining journey. The crowd waiting to get on had to be seen to be believed and somehow they all managed to board! The 3 being cross city service probably had a lot to do with it. On our walk, an all over Olympus advert tram passes us on the metre track [2], but a short walk on and [3] we see the additional standard gauge rail in place as the conversion work heads away from the city centre. Frantik assured us he knew a short cut back to the hotel via [4] a steep back road with run down property that was in complete contrast to our hotel [5] where the local pensioners take a lot of interest in me taking the photo of it. Tomorrow we shall be heading for home.
 
Sorry for interlude but have had some holidays including another week in the Czech Republic. (should have put on a short black and white film of someone working at a potters wheel accompanied by light music).
So departure for home day had arrived. Alarm calls were not needed as work on tramtrack laying outside the hotel commenced at 6 a.m.! Not sure which made the most noise, the digger or the Tatra lorry [1]. Ater breakfast we loaded our stuff on 3247 and followed our host David to the nearest Benzina Station [2] for a sponsored tank full of diesel to see us on our way. It was goodbyes all round as we set off for the journey back to our overnight stop in Germany. Returning by a different route from the German border we had an anxious moment [3] with a railway bridge marked 4.2 metres, but with utmost caution we cleared it with an inch or two to spare. We were ready for a beer when we got to our hotel [4], the Hotel Josefshaus in Hirschau. This was the excellent hotel we had found by chance on the outward journey so were glad to be back there.
 
Thanks Thylacine.

The Hotel Josefshaus [1] provided us with good food, drink and a sound nights sleep and by luck when the keys were handed out I had a third floor room with a balcony that seemed more Swiss than German. After breakfast we decided to have a walk into the town before setting off and found a compact centre with a Rathaus [2] and square with small shops. Most interesting was a 'Maypole' with signs attached to it [3]. We then left on our next leg to Remich, just over the border in Luxembourg. As we arrived early evening without prebooked accomodation, two of our team were to be unlucky in getting a bed for the night so we held a draw for two to stay in the Scania Hotel, in other words sleep on 3247. To this end 3247 was parked in a small bus station within sight of the hotel the rest stayed in. I drew a place in the hotel seen here [4] the following morning whilst Messrs Poggi were delivering fruit and veg to the kitchen.
 
A cracking story is this, Mike! You certainly can't beat driving around Europe - it beats flying every time. :D

Maurice :cool:
 
Sounds like you had a great time. We toured Europe a couple of years ago - did 3,000 miles in 16 days, with our 15 yr old son. Really opened his eyes.
 
Mike, Can understand your comment about not needing an alarm as work stated on the tram tracks at 6.00am. I was in Leipzig in September and my hotel room looked out on to quadruple tram tracks and in Leipzig the trams run through the night (The night services have their own route diagram). One track I think had a slight fault as trams running over that track were particularly noisy. As others have said, Many thanks for this story
 
Many thanks for your encouraging comments (I wouldn't mind a night in that Leipzig hotel, trams are music to my ears, even through the night!)

Looking over from the hotel [1] 3247 can be seen in the bus station. We had been expecting our outcasts in 3247 to join us for breakfast and the use of one of our hotel bathrooms but when we walked over to find them they were in good spirits having had a wash and brush up in the spotless bus station waiting room gents. They had also been out and found a bakery for some hot croissants and coffee so we didn't feel so bad about their poor lodgings. 3247 as it turned out had company overnight [2] in the shape of a Luxembourg (state, we think) bus company Renault, neatly parked on the pavement by the waiting room. (The driver presumably lived nearby as he was not asleep in it). It was interesting to compare it to the run down copies of this model that we had seen in Poland. Taking advantage of the cheap Luxembourg diesel we tanked up and set off on an uneventful run through Belgium ariving late evening in Calais for an early hours of the morning ferry to England. It wasn't quite over yet though as we had decided to book 3247 into the Showbus event at RAF Duxford before setting out to Czechoslovakia, so on landing made our way there. As a thank you to his staff and others for their help in making the Autofest a great success, David Griffiths decided to bring them on his Karosa 'Freedom Bus' to Duxford as well but having the advantage of coach speed had left Liberec well after us to reach Calais in time for the ferry we were on. We made quite an entrance at Showbus mainly because not having refuelled since Remich we ran out of diesel directly opposite a petrol station outside RAF Duxford! Refuelling was soon taken care of although we had to put up with a bit of mickey taking for the rest of the day, not least off Ian and his team who had brought RM 938 to Duxford to meet us. It was the Karosa that caught all the attention though, many people never having heard of the make, let alone seen one. The last two pics [3-4]show 3247 and Karosa together and a close up of the Karosa before we all parted company for home. Little did we know that many of our team would be taking 3247 and meeting up with Ian and RM 938 for another Bohemia Autofest in 1995!
 
Thanks Trevor, it's been a treat to recall the trip, look through the photos again and share them with friends here on the Forum.
 
Thanks for the latest installments, Mike. Fascinating reading (and viewing) as usual. I was interested in the Hirschau "maypole", but was unable to discover much information about it. (My poor German being largely responsible!).
 
Mike for youir benefit and as a thank you. This was the view from my hotel room (1)in Leipzig when I mentioned in my previous post the quad tram tracks. This was at the side of the main railway station. The blue pipe you see across the photo is taking water pumped out of the works building a new railway tunnel under the city from the Hauptbahnhof to the Byerische Bahnhof. Leipzig is built on marsh land thus requiring the pumping work during the building operations. As Leipzig trams are single ended I knew that there had to be a turning circle somewhere near the back of the station. I walked round and found the turning circle (2) and also the outlet of the pipe in a small river (3).
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Hello Mike, I know you dont like me saying this but I am not a bus or tram buff. I am/was a driver and had a short spell on P.S.Vs. but I have gone through this thread several times and find the messages and photos extremely interesting. I have never had the urge to go on an adventure like this but that does not stop me understanding the excitement and interest for those that do. I never missed a truck show for many years because my interest was in trucks. Once again, very interesting.

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Thanks for the views of Leipzig, David, specially the turning circle just up from your hotel in Karl Schumacher Strasse. I notice from the maps that there is a Willi Brandt Strasse at the front of the station, it seems strange to me having roads named after fairly recent people in the news - I couldn't imagine Downing Street becoming Margaret Thatcher Street!
That 'little river' at the side of the turning circle is not always that small, as this Panoramio picture taken from the next bridge west shows. It doesn't look all that clean, either!
 
Mike. Being in Leipzig made me realise that in some ways it is only a 20 year old city trying to forget yet commemorate its Communist and Nazi past. (It has both a Stazi Museum and a Communist era museum). Willi Brant Platz was I believe formerly Karl Marx Platz and before that it had a name which I think was Adolf Hitler Platz. However, there is still in Leipzig a Karl Leibknecht Strasse which incidentally is the address of the HO of the Leipzig City Transport. Karl Leibknecht was born in Leipzig who in Berlin in 1919 declared a Socialist Republic of Germany but was killed in the suppression of that uprising and is classed by Marxists as a martyr.
 
Again my thanks to everyone who stayed with this thread all the way through, and input to it. David, after seeing so many Tatra T3 tramcars in the Czech towns it is interesting to see the facelifted cars still in use today in Leipzig. The collapse of the Communist bloc countries sadly brought about the demise of the CKD Tatra Company when the vast orders from those countries dryed up. The Czech tram building tradition is still thriving but now through Skoda for new rolling stock and smaller firms that refurbish and rebuild Tatra trams. Pity the Midland Metro dosen't consider the economic 100% low floor Skoda 15T for their next new tram order if they insist on going abroad to source them rather than support our home industries.
 
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Mike an interesting point about the Leipzig trams. They do have some modern articulated cars but they do have quite a few new single cars. I noticed that cars were in many cases coupled together in sets of three, two single trams and a modern low floor trailer. When two Tatras were coupled together the second pantagraph was down but when two modern trams were coupled together both pantagraphs were up. I assumed from this that the modern cars were working in multiple but with the Tatras the second car was being hauled dead in train. Incidentally when I was in Budapest last year two single ended cars were coupled back to back as I think many of the turning circles had been taken out of use.
 
motorman-mike said:
... I will look out some tickets to show at the end of the trip ...
Click to expand...

Thanks again, Mike, for this marvellous 1993 "Busman's Holiday" tale. I have really enjoyed it, and am now going to read it again. (And just a gentle reminder about the tickets ... please. :))
 
Thanks motorman-mikefor the story and photo's what a tremendous adventure, I am really jealous I would love to do something like that. I have had a dream of getting a ferry from Newcastle and going to Tromso in Norway and then driving all the way back through Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland Belgium and France to the UK. but Ill health at present means I couldn't do it, but I always wanted to something with a bus or coach too since I saw "Summer Holiday" at the Royalty Harborne in 62/63 what an adventure.
Paul
 
POST SCRIPT

I have managed to dig out a banknote I saved as souvenir and also a card type ticket issued on the Jested Cable Car (operated as you may remember by the Czech State Railways). The fare had obviously recently gone up from 20 to 30 Koruns for the return journey, still very cheap by Brit standards.
 
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Thanks for those, Mike. Great to hear from you: I trust you're surviving the UK winter (so far). It's getting a tad too warm down here!
 
Lloyd said:
Thanks for the views of Leipzig, David, specially the turning circle just up from your hotel in Karl Schumacher Strasse. I notice from the maps that there is a Willi Brandt Strasse at the front of the station, it seems strange to me having roads named after fairly recent people in the news - I couldn't imagine Downing Street becoming Margaret Thatcher Street!
That 'little river' at the side of the turning circle is not always that small, as this Panoramio picture taken from the next bridge west shows. It doesn't look all that clean, either!
Click to expand...

For Motorman Mike and for Lloyd. You both might be interested in the fact that Google are rolling out Street View in Germany. There are many times when trams have been caught on camera. I have looked again at Kurt Schumacher Strasse, Leipzig, where I stayed in a hotel last September. If you go along the street you will see the turning circle but unfortunately not with any trams.
 
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