Czech narrow gauge line shuts
THE 79km (49 miles), 760mm gauge, Jindřichohradecké místní dráhy (JHMD) railway located around 120km south of Prague closed with almost no notice on October 2.
A court rejected proposals to allow JHMD to continue trading a few days later, although buses were being provided instead of trains.
The network JHMD operated opened between 1897 and 1910 and was effectively privatised (being sold for 1 Crown – or around 5 pence) in 1997 to JHMD set up by local residents and rail enthusiasts to promote the future of the lines. The railway, which had been threatened with closure under the communist regime in the 1970s, had a passenger service paid for by regional governments, although these payments had been withheld in recent months, which cannot have helped finances.
Services were mostly operated using ex-Czechoslovak Railways (ČSD) Class
705 / T47 diesel locos built by ČKD in the mid-1950s, although they had been modernised, normally with just one coach. Steam locos worked some summer services and in the last decade several second-hand narrow gauge MBxd2 DMUs had been bought from Poland, although these appeared to rarely be used.
It is unclear if the system will have a future. The contracts JHMD had with regional governments were due to end in October 2024, but replacement of train services with buses for all or part of the network had already been under discussion since 2021. JHMD is legally required to negotiate with the Czech Ministry of Transport in order to transfer the Obrataň – Kamenice nad Lipou section of route to the state, assuming the government wants it back.