I’m heading to Cesky Tesin via Vitkovice. The station announcement says the train will be diverted, so I figured it could only go via the main station, since there’s no overhead wire via Frydek and it would add quite a few kilometers on the way to Tesin. I go to change seats, because where I was sitting it rattled quite a lot. On the way, a mom with a little boy stops me and asks what “running on a diversion” means, and whether they’ll end up in Prague at best.
That she and her kid don’t travel by train much, but whenever they do, there’s always some breakdown or oddity. We’re heading to Vitkovice, then we stop, turn 180 degrees, and right then a Leo Express zooms past us at lightning speed, at least 160 km/h it seemed to me. Meanwhile the boy comments: “We’re going to Vitkovice and to Opava at the same time!” and I’m googling le.cz, cd.cz and others to find out what on earth this is now.
I tell myself that maybe the driver just forgot, although that’s nonsense: they have information systems that tell them exactly where to go and when. Besides, the CityElefants have AVV (Automatic Train Operation): if the train’s position based on GPS and the transmitters mounted on every catenary mast doesn’t add up, or if the train is on the wrong route or running early or late, the train stops, slows down, or speeds up so that it arrives where it should at the ideal time, with regard to safety, smoothness, and the smallest possible delay.
I’m working on my PC and I can’t believe my ears: “Ostrava-Vitkovice“. I look, and sure enough. I didn’t get it: we hadn’t stopped, and yet here we are in Vitkovice. Then the conductor checked my ticket and from her I learned that we had gone over the Polanka link, a line that isn’t used, at least not for passenger traffic. It’s partly used for freight, but freight mostly goes via the main station, where the Polish steelworks are and the tracks are better maintained after all. This time the link came in handy: both tracks between Svinov and Vitkovice are under repair.
On the Czech Railways service disruptions page 👻 This link retired before it was even eligible for a pension.not a single word about it!