Czechoslovak State Railways

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Czechoslovak State Railways (in Czech Československé státní dráhy, ČSD) was a state owned railway company in Czechoslovakia.

The company was created in 1918, after the end of First World War and breakup of Austria-Hungary. It took over vehicle park and infrastructure of Imperial Austrian State Railways.

In 1930 it Czechoslovakia had 13,600 km of railroads (fifth largest in Europe) of which 81% were state (ČSD) owned and the trend was to nationalize remaining private railroads. Most of the infrastructure was concentrated in industrial regions of the Czech lands. 87% of the railroads were single track. 135,000 people were employed at the railroads (around 1% of the population).

When Czechoslovakia break down in 1939 Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia formed company "Bohemian-Moravian Railways" (in Czech Českomoravská dráha, in German Böhmisch-Mährische Bahn) under control of Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB). In Slovak State company "Slovak Railways" (in Slovak Slovenské železnice) was formed. In 1945 the ČSD was established again.

After dissolution of Czechoslovakia (the end of 1992) the company was divided into state owned Czech Railways (České dráhy) and Railways of the Slovak Republic (Železnice Slovenskej republiky). The imovable infrastructure was transferred to the sucessor countries according to location, the rest was divided by 2:1 ratio.

[edit] Electrification

Electrification of the railroads slowly started during 1920s: in Prague the trains used direct current system with volgate of 1.5 kV.
To power the line from Prague to Chop (Чоп, Čop, today's Ukraine) direct current system using 3 kV has been built after 1945.
On the north of this line trains use direct current with voltage 3 kV, on the south they use alternating current with voltage 25 kV/50 Hz. These two systems exist until today.