Re: Plan C - Makov Posted by grahame at 14:07, 25th June 2025 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
I imagine whoever maintains the railways in the UK could learn from the places you've visited Graham and significantly reduce their maintenance bills by getting rid of all that namby pamby safety fencing we have around our tracks 

There are certain things I see where I could ask "could we do this in the UK / why don't we?" and they would be very difficult to find answers to. There are also things that go the other way - I could wonder why they don't do things in [name a country I have visited] that they do in the UK.
Re: Plan C - Makov Posted by matth1j at 09:47, 25th June 2025 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
I imagine whoever maintains the railways in the UK could learn from the places you've visited Graham and significantly reduce their maintenance bills by getting rid of all that namby pamby safety fencing we have around our tracks

Plan C - Makov Posted by grahame at 06:04, 25th June 2025 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Makov - not in the European Rail Timetable, not shown as a pretty line on the rail map of Europe - but I beg to differ from that judgement. We bucked along from Cadca in a 4 carriage train each carriage with just 4 wheels - a bus on rails and at Turzokva changed to a shorter (2 carriage) train of the same type.
My plan yesterday was a zero-train day to attend a Zoomed conference from Swindon, so Makov was a last minute addition - about 90 minutes each way - an afternoon trip out from Zilina and a worthy alternative to Swindon!
------- Text from my Facebook post
Plan "A" yesterday was to attend the Community Rail Conference via Zoom. Plan "B" if that failed was to do something else. And "B" it was when my Zoom connection proved so limited due, I believe, to traffic level restrictions at my (Slovak) end. So "Plan B" it was - a trip up to Skalite where once again plans changed (too hot to climb the hill to the crosses) and I ended up on Plan "C". So here are some pictures from Makov - a village at the end of a line, which is itself another line that's another branch.
A lovely afternoon riding trains that remind me of the pacers that saved so many lines in the UK - in the generation of Community Rail that was concerned with getting bums on seats and saving lines - as recalled yesterday morning by Heather Cullimore of the Severnside Community Rail Partnership before my connection to the conference started limiting me.
I'm not captioning individual pictures - a reader has challenged me to say that I should. Some I will and do comment on / explain but for most all a caption would do is re-iterate what I write in the main text; often it's just a "that's nice" picture to bring the place to life and I've not a clue who built it, when it was last used, or why it's so special - this is a sampling trip and I am sampling more. If anyone is interested in something in an individual picture, please ask and I will answer - but expect that the answer will often be "I don't know". If you are fascinated, you could add the place to your travel plans or research.
A lovely afternoon riding trains that remind me of the pacers that saved so many lines in the UK - in the generation of Community Rail that was concerned with getting bums on seats and saving lines - as recalled yesterday morning by Heather Cullimore of the Severnside Community Rail Partnership before my connection to the conference started limiting me.
I'm not captioning individual pictures - a reader has challenged me to say that I should. Some I will and do comment on / explain but for most all a caption would do is re-iterate what I write in the main text; often it's just a "that's nice" picture to bring the place to life and I've not a clue who built it, when it was last used, or why it's so special - this is a sampling trip and I am sampling more. If anyone is interested in something in an individual picture, please ask and I will answer - but expect that the answer will often be "I don't know". If you are fascinated, you could add the place to your travel plans or research.




