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 the vehicle stock and infrastructure of the Imperial Austrian State Railways.

In 1930 Czechoslovakia had 13,600 km of railroads (the 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 the industrial regions of the Czech lands. 87% of the railroads were single track. 135,000 people were employed on the railroads (around 1% of the population).

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

After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia (at the end of 1992) the company was divided into state owned Czech Railways (České dráhy) and the Railways of the Slovak Republic (Železnice Slovenskej republiky). The immovable infrastructure was transferred to the successor 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 a direct current system at 1.5 kV.
To power the line from Prague to Chop (Чоп, Čop, today's Ukraine) a direct current system using 3 kV was built post 1945.
To the north of this line trains use direct current with voltage 3 kV, to the south they use alternating current with voltage 25 kV at 50 Hz. These two systems continue to exist today.