Solvay Quarries Open-air Museum

Near the village of Svatý Jan pod Skalou, the Solvay Quarries open-air museum (skansen) is concerned with limestone quarrying and transport. The quarry started in 1916 to provide limestone to a factory that produced soda ash with the Solvay method. Stone was worked by compressed-air tools then crushed and sorted in a mill. Transport was by a narrow-gauge railway and a 1.5-km aerial cableway. Later the quarry produced roadstone carried in lorries. It closed in 1963. A preservation group began caring for the site in 1993.

The quarry is a nature reserve open to visitors to walk around on marked trails with interpretation panels. Guided tours take visitors around the 600-mm gauge railway, which operates with diesel and electric locomotives, passenger wagons and tipping wagons. Other objects at the museum include quarry dumper trucks, a bulldozer and a 1927 steam locomotive made by Schwartzkopff in Berlin. Indoor displays include plans, photographs and quarrying equipment.