The Pendolino in the Czech Republic
The first demonstration rides of the high-speed Pendolino trains took place on our railways in 1989. On a regular unreconstructed track a Pendolino train reached the then-unbelievable speed of 165 km per hour. At the beginning of the 1990s it was then decided to modernise the railway corridor, which runs along the same original path it has since the mid 19th century, and in sections with many turns in the valleys of Czech and Moravian rivers (the Vltava, Labe, Svitava and Orlice) to use trains with tilting wagon bodies for faster transport. In 1995, high-speed Pendolino trains were ordered from an international consortium for Czech Railways. Poor economic conditions with the Czech member of the production consortium led to production delays, but despite this the project managed to successfully complete the trains’ production and delivery the Czech Republic.
Since 11 December 2005, passengers have been able to use the comfort of the modern Pendolino 680 series trains for travel around the Czech Republic. Trains of this series travel from Prague as SuperCity trains on two lines – northern and southern. The path of the northern line for SC Pendolino trains runs from Praha hl.n. through Pardubice hl.n., Olomouc hl.n. and Ostrava-Svinov to Ostrava hl.n. The southern branch runs from Praha hl.n. through Brno and Břeclav to Bratislava or to Vienna.