Czech Railways Museum

Lužna u Rakovnika, on the edge of the Kinvoklát forest, a little more than an hour’s journey west of Prague on the railway to Chomutov, has since 1997 been the location of the museum of the Czech Railways. It is located, adjacent to the passenger station, in a former locomotive depot of the Buštĕrhrad Railway, a roundhouse with extensive open air sidings around it, where the coal loading stage, water cranes and inspection and ash pits are still in situ. Several of the most important exhibits are held on loan from the National Technical Museum in Prague. The collection includes more than 30 standard gauge steam locomotives. One of the oldest, No 310.076 was built at Floridsdorf, Vienna, in 1899, worked until the 1950s, and stood on a plinth at Ceské Budĕjovice until it was removed to the museum in 2009. Another locomotive of outstanding interests is a Class 434, designed for working freight trains, which was the first produced by the Škoda Plzeň works in 1920. The museum also holds some of the imposing locomotives built in the Czech lands in the 1950s when electrification of the main lines was already in process, including some of the large 4-6-4T tank locomotives which operated local and suburban trains. There is also a Class 387 2-8-2 or ‘Mikado’ locomotive, of a type widely used in the inter-war years, and a Kriegslok 2-10-0 freight locomotive. A steam railcar, No 124.000 Komarek built in 1903 and still operating is one of the most unusual exhibits. There are also diesel and electric locomotives, passenger carriages and freight wagons, and snow ploughs, and visitors can ride on trains on a length of 800 mm gauge track.